Marie Wynants

When Marie Wynants was fourteen, she ventured into the world of dance. The future photographer enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and immersed herself both in the contemporary dance repertoire and in analysing body movement. Being confronted daily with discipline and the thirst for perfection in the dance world, she developed a strong sense of aesthetics. Gradually, Wynants began to see dance movements as visual patterns and she also noticed how they are linked to emotional expression. She was subsequently drawn to photography as well and became intrigued by how images of the human body are conceptualised in society. While studying photography at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, she slowly fine-tuned a passion for the visual language of the human body.

wORKS

The inherent elegance of the human body and its physical limitations are central to Marie Wynants’ artistic work. She shoots people that fascinate her, partners with musicians with distinct personalities and also directs music videos. In addition to her shoots for magazines such as Vogue, Elle and Numéro, Marie Wynants is particularly celebrated for her iconic portraits of artists such as Charlotte de Witte, Angèle and Oscar & The Wolf. In the process, she draws on her experiences as a dancer to direct her subjects, in order to also express her own reality. Moreover, her background in contemporary dance not only exerts a constant influence on her oeuvre, but it has also shaped her personality – as a photographer, but also as a human being.