Jennifer's Portfolio and Bio
Jennifer Kesteleyn was born (20th July 1984) and raised in Ghent, Belgium. When she was in her childhood
she was constantly drawing and painting. From puberty on, she started writing poetry which resulted
in a number of publications. Numerous jury reports mentioned the strong visual dimension
of her poetry where the physical aspects were omnipresent.
On an artistic field things got quiet when she started studying Political Sciences at Ghent University.
After obtaining her masters degree in International Relations and a six month internship
at the Belgian embassy in Nairobi (Kenya) the foundations of her interest in photography emerged.
What started with the idea of making good pictures during numerous travels quickly evolved
into a profound passion for photography. During the time she was working on her PhD in
International Relations she luckily was able to start evening classes in photography.
One could say that Jennifer Kesteleyn was photographically born on the 31h December 2015
whilst making a first auto portrait in an abandoned greenhouse. From then on,
she started working on the series called ‘Abandoned feelings’ which are a translation of the poetry
she wrote in the past, combined with her adventurous nature. For now, she’s on the verge of finishing her PhD
and in the meantime taking her first footsteps in the field of professional photography.
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Why Jennifer?
For Jennifer's feature I chose a combination of her auto portraits from the series Marianismo
and her street portraits. I feel that's where Jennifer's talent is stoutly engraved
distinguishing her from other photographers in this particular focus.
In both of these genres there is a certain detachment and loneliness that is highlighted by
being lit brightly. It isolates her subjects from their environments as if
they didn't want to belong; rather would want to be individualized.
...