Something I often find inspiring within the art world, is when creative voices can infuse their commissioned work with the same unique extravagance that became the trademark of their personal projects.
A perfect example can be found in the portfolio of mixed media virtuoso Frederik Heyman, who at times lends his unique voice to juggernauts in the field of fashion and music. Featured here is a hypnotic mix of portraiture and digital installation the Belgian conceptualised for the trendsetting ‘Dust Magazine’ in their lucky thirteenth issue titled ‘We have no fathers’.
Set in carefully staged digitised decors, Heyman converts inspirations from film and fine art into detailed slices of time. The actors in these ‘passion plays’ are on this occasion the ‘crème de la crème’ of Belgian creativity, from visual (Rinus van de Velde) to performance artists (Billy Bultheel). Every detail matters in these photogrammetried scenes, not in the least the carefully chosen outfits, provided by leading designers like Dries Van Noten.
The interplay of the temporal within these installations is fascinating. While we find the protagonist’s life on pause (save perhaps a smouldering cigarette), the camera provides a sense of movement, at times quite literal when we witness it capturing the scene in the Billy Bultheel section. Accompanied by Roman Hiele’s soundscapes, we’re transported from one piece to the next, entering Pasolini’s ‘Salo’ before moving on to the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, which in its turn takes us to ‘the death of Marat’. All clever winks to iconic art moments, re-interpreted and re-mixed.
Watching them, I loved peeling back the different layers and messages contained within, sometimes scribbled on fake mirrors or running through red tinted teleprompters. “And I know in the end I will try to remember what it was to be me” becomes an all to fitting phrase when the fragmented segments of these 3D-scanned personalities are confronted with each other. The visual stunning portraits feel above all like an exploration, into the psyche of its subjects but perhaps even more into the inner world of its creator.