Book Spell - Karel Fonteyne

Karel Fonteyne has built up an extensive oeuvre during a career spanning more than 50 years in art and fashion photography. In the late 1960s and 1970s he was a pioneer in the world of art photography. For more than 15 years, Fonteyne was internationally active within the fashion scene, both in Antwerp with early collaborations with Margiela, Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck and Dirk Bikkembergs, and internationally, with assignments for prestigious magazines such as Vogue, Interview, Bazaar, Marie-Claire or Brutus Magazine in Japan. In 1996 he decided to stop fashion photography and focus exclusively on his work as a contemporary artist. For the group exhibition at the Handelsbeurs, a selection was made of some of his iconic fashion series for Vogue France and one image was created for Giorgio Armani.

Karel Fonteyne's narrative images transcend classical photography in which the artist creates a timeless, sometimes strange and esoteric atmosphere. His work evokes paradoxical feelings and confronts us with cosmic and mystical elements, our internal world linked to forms of loneliness or isolation, often compensated by a perfume of humor or surrealism.
“I usually don't photograph what I see but how my mind reflects it”.