Hellen van Meene Solo Exhibition at Yancey Richardson Gallery

Thu, Dec 10 - Sat, Jan 23  2016

Yancey Richardson Gallery - New York Consulate Region

From December 10 until January 23, Dutch artist Hellen van Meene has her fifth solo exhibition, “Five,” at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York.

Hellen van Meene

Best known for her portraits of young girls in various stages of adolescence, van Meene’s photographs are characterized by their exquisite use of light, formal elegance, and palpable psychological tension. In these new works, van Meene retains her signature style while adding an allegorical element that pushes these images into a new fantastical realm evoking familiar images from the art historical canon. 

Projecting the uncanny quality of fairy tales and horror movies, van Meene peoples her images with somnabulent girls, headless bodies, faceless figures and solitary young women encapsulated in empty, luminous rooms. Based in the outskirts of Amsterdam, the Dutch-born van Meene has been steeped in the traditions of classical painting.  Like many artists of the last century, she draws on this knowledge to create contemporary images that, in her case, evoke those of Ingres, Millais, Vermeer and Velasquez. 

Born in Alkmaar, the Netherlands in 1972, Hellen van Meene lives and works in Heiloo, the Netherlands. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the collections of major museums worldwide including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, MoCA Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A retrospective of van Meene’s work was recently on view at The Hague Museum of Photography. 

About Yancey Richardson Gallery

Founded in 1995, the Yancey Richardson Gallery is one of the preeminent dealers of fine art photography in the US. Yancey Richardson brings over 30 years of experience to the gallery’s exhibition program, and is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA). Formerly housed in the renowned 560 Broadway building in historic Soho, the gallery is now located in the heart of New York’s Chelsea art district.