Filip Naudts presents: Beeldspraak

 

Beeldspraak

This week in the Filip Naudts special we write about his third project, named 'Beeldspraak' which in a way stands for 'figurative language'. In 1999 he started the project and at this time it still didn't reach its end.
In this project a selection of citizens of Lochristi(B) are individually sitting in front of Naudts' camera. (Lochristi is the place where Filip Naudts lives and where he has his own studio.) All types of people are to be invited; young and old people as well as fat and thin people, men/women, able-bodied men/invalids and so on…
For Naudts it is more like an exercise to mould people from different backgrounds in a uniformed spherical style, a style which describes itself as 'typical Naudts'.
The idea came into existence from the time on he felt himself alienating from his own neighbors. He wanted to meet those fellow citizens and decided to invite them to participate the project. At this moment sixty of them passed Naudts' revue. More of them to come.
Everyone, somehow connected to the municipality of Lochristi, is nowadays still potentially invited to participate the 'Beeldspraak' series.
The persons invited are asked by Naudts not to wear trendy clothes or jewelry, this with the strict intention to bring them in a desired kind of overall timelessness. On emotional level they are asked to forget or pass by the material way of thinking and to focus on something close to nothing.
He resulted photographs allow to be described as 'emotional portraits' or as 'portraits of the sub consciousness'. As a beholder you'd even believe that a few people might have been photographed hypnotized. But in reality they are but in a state of intense serenity, carefully directed by a professional photographing artist.