Pieter van Dijen

Pieter van Dijen is a Dutch visual artist who creates abstract photographic images.

 

At the age of ten van Dijen started taking pictures using his father’s spare camera: a Kodak Retina. At this time he mainly made holiday snapshots and landscape pictures, which he developed in an improvised dark room in the cellar of his house. 

 

In the 1980’s van Dijen lived in New York for some years. His wife worked there as a fashion model with photographers such as Helmut Newton and Richard Avedon. Fashion photography heavily inspired him and caused him to develop a new view on photography. He started making portraits of people who interested him, from models to passerby in the street. He also took up street photography, with a special interest in architecture. With the right combination of light, setting and scenery he turns the most ordinary subjects into something special.

 

The inspiration for van Dijen’s more recent work comes from abstract art. In his project ‘Abstract Portraits’ he creates abstraction in the figurative by photographing tattooed people in unique positions or in close-ups. In ‘Droomoord’ he created abstracted views of some of the most iconic buildings in Rotterdam through inverting colors and mirroring. Currently he is working on a new project called Luminosity, creating abstract shapes from silhouettes of people.