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Lot Essay
Dutch artist Desiree Dolron’s Xteriors series combines reality and fantasy to haunting and mesmerizing effects. Inspired by the stark beauty and reliance on natural light in seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings by the likes of Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Dolron’s Xteriors pay homage to one of the most celebrated periods in European art history—albeit with a contemporary twist. Indeed, by relying on cutting-edge digital tools, Dolron painstakingly manipulated her photographs to create images that confidently and equally occupy the realms of paintings and photography. ‘Puzzles with million of pixels,’ Dolron has stated, ‘that’s what they are.’
The title of the series is derived from a story the artist wrote in her childhood, ‘Buitenkanten’, which translates as ‘Exteriors.’ Sixteen images comprise the oeuvre, which is loosely divided into group shots and individual portraits—almost all depicting women. The protagonists in the images are digital hybrids of multiple models: synthesized and aestheticized icons of post-modern, post-racial beauty. ‘Every square millimeter of my image is digitally manipulated,’ Dolron has explained. ‘Not just the skin and tones, but also the facial features themselves.’ Noting Petrus Christus’s Portrait of a Young Girl from 1465-1470 as a particular point of departure for the individual portraits, Dolron successfully imbues her models with an air that transcends realistic likelihood. The portraits are about capturing an air of mysterious tension and unexpected tranquility.
Xteriors was photographed inside an eighteenth-century country house named Oud Amelisweerd, near Utrecht. Dolron carefully studied the light and designed the costumes, which could be classified as part monastic and part titillating. The model shown in the current lot, arguably the most direct interpretation of Christus’s Portrait of a Young Girl, appears to face an open and natural source of light that remains beyond the frame. Turning her head to face the viewers, her gaze remains aloof, even imperious. Possessing an otherworldly mystery, she hovers above any perceptible links to reality, occupying a mythical fairytale existence that leaves the viewers perpetually enchanted.
The title of the series is derived from a story the artist wrote in her childhood, ‘Buitenkanten’, which translates as ‘Exteriors.’ Sixteen images comprise the oeuvre, which is loosely divided into group shots and individual portraits—almost all depicting women. The protagonists in the images are digital hybrids of multiple models: synthesized and aestheticized icons of post-modern, post-racial beauty. ‘Every square millimeter of my image is digitally manipulated,’ Dolron has explained. ‘Not just the skin and tones, but also the facial features themselves.’ Noting Petrus Christus’s Portrait of a Young Girl from 1465-1470 as a particular point of departure for the individual portraits, Dolron successfully imbues her models with an air that transcends realistic likelihood. The portraits are about capturing an air of mysterious tension and unexpected tranquility.
Xteriors was photographed inside an eighteenth-century country house named Oud Amelisweerd, near Utrecht. Dolron carefully studied the light and designed the costumes, which could be classified as part monastic and part titillating. The model shown in the current lot, arguably the most direct interpretation of Christus’s Portrait of a Young Girl, appears to face an open and natural source of light that remains beyond the frame. Turning her head to face the viewers, her gaze remains aloof, even imperious. Possessing an otherworldly mystery, she hovers above any perceptible links to reality, occupying a mythical fairytale existence that leaves the viewers perpetually enchanted.