by Christian Mac

AWARD OF EXELLENCE FOR WORKS APPEARING IN HASSELBLAD FORUM

THE FINE ART PRINT FIRST AWARD
”Artist Olav Herman Hansen” by Hans Jørgen Brun

THE COMMERCIAL PRINT FIRST AWARD
”Kristine and Henriette, eight years old” by Hans Jørgen Brun

CRITIQUE:

Hans Jørgen Brun’s powerful portrait entitled ”Artist Olav Herman Hansen” stands in the finest tradition of Yosuf Karsh’s ”Pablo Casals in Prades, 1954” and Arnold Newman’s ”Igor Stravinsky, 1946”. It is an exquisite study of subject and space. The viewer is immediately drawn to the physical eyes of the subject and in the process, something between the highlights of the hand with smoking cigarette and the artist’s eyes and face is balanced by the comparatively subdued highlights of the receding background. Notice how the pattern of smoke rising from the subject’s cigarette is expanded and repeated in the background highlights. As the eye scans the details of this background, it is drawn upward and into the darkened abyss of an open doorway. Or is it the two dimensional surface of a painting partially lost in shadow? There is the element of mystery at work here as it is with any great work of art. For example, is this a table of edible delights awaiting guests or is it the creative product of the artist? The viewer’s eye must pause and examine it more closely to be sure. Are we being asked to share the subject’s food or his art? Is there any difference? Perhaps only the two artists know… the photographer and photographed.

Hans Jørgen Brun’s “Kristine and Henriette, eight years old”, raises many more questions than it resolves. As the result, the viewer’s stare is held captive. For example, one is tempted to ask: what occasion brought these to lovely twins before the portraitist’s camera? Was it really their eight birthday celebration? What makes Henriette smile while Kristine is more serious? Did Henriette receive the larger, and perhaps more desirable, of the wo dolls for her birthday… the one so carefully placed next to the bench? Or is it because Kristine feels the awkwardness and restriction that any right-handed person must, when sharing less than half of a two-seat bench with their left-handed twin? Or has the photographer played a trick on his viewers?

© R. McKinney, Jr.   204 Compton Road, Raleigh, NC 27609 USA