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Eric Kellerman is a Briton who has lived near Nijmegen in the Netherlands for just over half his life. When not taking photographs, he teaches linguistics at the local university. In 2008, he will retire from academic life to spend more time on photography. He works almost entirely in the studio and uses digital equipment from camera to print, although image manipulation is limited to darkroom-like processes. Specialising in the nude, he has a regular team of female collaborators, most of whom have a serious interest in movement (dance, drama therapy, athletics, martial arts). Sometimes, when there is no model available, he photographs vegetables and fruit out of desperation.
Kellerman considers his work to be distant, abstract, melancholic, ‘unerotic’, despite its subject matter. He emphasises line, geometrical form, texture, implicit movement, and above all, chiaroscuro. He likes to create ambiguity in his photos, so that the viewer is sometimes unsure what part of the body is being looked at. In this way, he attempts to free the female body of its conventional associations.
He has been influenced by surrealism (Dali, Magritte, Delvaux’ nudes and railway stations) and the Canadian ‘magic realist’ painter Alex Colville, whose occluded bodies in essentially intimate scenes can create a surprising sense of alienation. This partial view, the ‘privileged peep’, fits in with Kellerman’s particular aesthetic very well.
Eric Kellerman is also represented by:
Fotogalerie Nr. 5, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
Lensmodern, London, England
Gallery Gora, Montreal, Canada
Stone+Press, New Orleans, USA
FILM
In preparation: 52-minute documentary about Kellerman’s photography, made by Alexis Cartonnet and Pablo Knudsen (France). The film premieres in January 2008.
EXHIBITIONS
Oct 2002: Odense, Denmark
June 2003: Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Sept/Oct 2003: 'Some body', Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Rugby, England
2006: 2 Nov-16 Dec, 'Portable Landscapes', Fotogalerie No. 5, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
2007: 24 Feb-7 April, Group show, Fotogalerie No. 5, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
2007: 24 May-15 July, Group show, Global Ruitenberg Advocaten, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2007: 15 August-end September, Group show to celebrate Red Hair Day, Breda, The Netherlands
2008: February, Solo show, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon, France
PUBLICATIONS
Prize:
2005: Black & White Magazine Single Image Merit Award
Book:
2007: Ketenangang.
Features in magazines
2005: Black & White Annual (USA)
2005: Focus (USA)
2005: Art-Photo-Akt (Germany)
2006: Focus Maandblad (Netherlands)
Photos in books
2005: The Body (Feierabend)
2006: Extreme lighting conditions in digital photography (AVA)
2006: Composition (AVA Basics)
2006: Nudes (Rotovision)
2007: Lighting (AVA Basics)
