Bastiaan Woudt's oversized hat silhouettes on display in Los Angeles

The Fahey Klein Gallery in Los Angeles is exhibiting until March 18 the work of Dutch photographer Bastiaan Woudt. A self-taught artist, whose photographic work began a decade ago, and whose elegant female silhouettes in black and white have earned him exhibitions around the world.

Inspired by the great masters of photography, such as Man Ray or Irving Penn, the photographer adds a modern approach to photography through his use of flattened depth of field and two-dimensional perspective. The result is a succession of portraits of women in charcoal tones and elegant compositions, all wearing extravagant and graphic hats, ranging from oversized capelines, to chainmail headdresses and creative hats.
 
"Bastiaan’s photographs do not start with mood boards or tear sheets," explained Fahey Klein Gallery in its artist presentation. "Instead, he moves with his subjects in a predefined space to find his photography. By maneuvering in this manner, he allows the image to reveal itself. Artists have photographed the body and person since the invention of the camera. Bastiaan Woudt’s unique perspective finds new way to see the human form.”

The exhibition also presents the monograph Rhythm which gathers on more than 500 pages the photographer's work. In the past decade, he has published seven books and been featured in numerous magazines such as Numero Magazine and National Geographic. His also has launched his own publishing house, 1605 Publishers, which is a platform for emerging and established artists and a publishing house for photographic books and objects.