Thomas Vandenberghe
Thomas Vandenberghe (Gent, Belgium) makes small, intimate photographs, a kind of diary of his personal life. Using a compact film camera with flash, his aesthetic style is the one of the private snapshot. His work deals with the psychology of the image as much as the psychology of relationships and is driven by longing, love and loss.
If for Vandenberghe the act of photographing has to do with desire, then the equally important act of printing addresses memory. The need to not only look at, but also reconcile oneself with what once was, but perhaps even more so with what could have been – but isn’t and will never be. Repeated, faded, or even torn, scratched or cut, his gelatin silver prints carry the poignant proof of an ongoing process of feelings and reactions, or perhaps even a conclusion reached. Each printed photograph of Vandenberghe contains the drama of what one hopes and longs for – an imagined truth – and what ultimately remains. They are the lingering, emotionally burdened and over time distorted evidence of a reality one now has to live with.