about

Jean-Pierre Damen urban and street photography - SDIM0262-2.jpg
"His photos are cinematic in appearance and blur the lines between street photography, tableau, and fine art."

jean-pierre damen is an urban photographer capturing urbanity in its broadest sense: from street impressions to abstracts views on the city, from atmospheric nightshots to (life in) urban space and architecture. Some people call some of this streetphotography.

General recurring themes in his work are: the relation between hyperindividuality and isolation, and existential anxiety caused by modernity.

He takes both analogue and digital pictures with a strong preference for getting things right in-camera with minimal editing.

"Throughout my work and especially in the ongoing series 'Urban Dystopia' I try to mold the ordinary into a new reality, revealing underlying themes of (social) isolation and anxiety. And although my work is unstaged and often point and shoot, through close observation I often capture scenes in a Tableau Vivant kind of way. I document everyday urban life, but because of my thematic approach I tap into a second layer, often a layer of discomfort. Accordingly I prefer to work in long-running series, as it give more room to elaborate and deviate from more traditional, both classic and modern, single-shot streetphotography."

Since 2017 he has chosen photography for a theme-driven approach in capturing urbanity, resulting in two first online projects called Urban Decay and Urban Abstractions (soon back online).

In 2018 the project Sub-way-conscious was added as well as the multi-commended series Urban Dystopia, which is also featured in BANGBANGZINE issue 3.

In 2019 the series Nightdrifters, the award-winning Moroccan Trail, a new edition of Urban Abstractions and a revision for Urban Dystopia were added.

For 2020/2021 a new edition of Urban Dystopia is in the works, with the COVID-19 pandemic more current than ever. As a pre-study the photo-essay Pandemic Aesthetic was conceived. Three other series are in the works, one called Lucid Dreaming which is to be expected in 2021.

Jean-Pierre Damen urban and street photography - IMG_0577.jpeg

awards and achievements

2021



2020

2019

publications

2020

2019