Renata Dutrée | Time Will Tell

Renata Dutrée | Time Will Tell

“For this project, I combined staged portraits with still-lives.
Through online fora, I approached five women who were severely traumatized in the past. Their personal stories are ones they used to keep hidden, as it is considered taboo to talk about what happened to them, and there is so much they could lose if they stopped being silent.”
– Renata Dutrée

I drew inspiration from the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age in creating this series.
The works of the 17th-century master painters combine an immediate visual draw with elements that slowly reveal themselves. They contain hidden secrets and clues that convey a message and address a taboo through symbolism. A perfect example of how first impressions can be deceiving.

This presentation style seemed to suit my project perfectly, as the situation the portrayed women found themselves in is one of secrecy and hiding while pretending all is well.

For this project, I combined staged portraits with still-lives. Through online forums, I approached five women who were severely traumatised in the past. Their personal stories are ones they used to keep hidden, as talking about what happened to them is considered taboo, and there is so much they could lose if they stopped being silent.

Before the actual shoot, we had many talks on the telephone, discussing what best described the emotions they had both in the past and present. For example, they needed to cope with feelings of “fault,” “guilt,” “shame,” and “self-blame,” intertwined with feelings of loneliness, low self-esteem, loss, grief, emptiness, fatigue, abandonment, and alienation.

In my staged portraits, I show them the beautiful women they are with dignity, and I present their unique beauty to the women themselves. That is something they have lost along the way, being in touch with their own femininity. With the help of a makeup artist and stylist, we created looks that emphasize their femininity, inner strength, and uniqueness. The lighting setup was chosen to add drama to the scene and suggest a mood of threatening darkness. The props were selected for their symbolic meaning. They act as clues that convey an unsettling feeling in the looming darkness. There is more than meets the eye in these portraits and still-life photographs. Subtly, the combination of these works tells these women’s personal stories through the use of symbolism. They are metaphors for the feelings of sexually abused women and are stories of loss of innocence, decay, and death.

The difficulty and shame of talking about what happened to them, combined with the taboo surrounding the topic of sexual abuse/rape, make it nearly impossible to recover from this trauma. I greatly admire these courageous women, as they decided it was time to speak up for themselves and no longer be held captive by this trauma. I’m thankful for the trust they put in me, daring to stand in front of my camera and give room to emotions that were trapped inside their minds for many years, for most
of them.

We kept in contact after the photo shoot, and they all marked the shoot as a turning point in their lives. They started enjoying expressing their femininity again, wearing makeup, and buying clothes that celebrated their female forms. They even used the photographs to open up conversations with relatives and friends and felt relieved and revived by the responses they got.
I’m personally fascinated by the deeply hidden pain of traumas in our minds and hope to reveal something about their existence via my photography. The grief and anguish that arises from not being able or allowed to talk about that trauma have consequences for one’s self-image and self-esteem.

With my images, I both hope to arouse the viewer’s curiosity about the other and create awareness of the presence of suppressed grief and anguish. It is an invitation to take a step back, zoom out and see life from a higher vantage point than your own, without prejudice.

Renata Dutrée

Former dermatologist Renata Dutrée is a Dutch Fine Art photographer who often uses social themes as the starting point for a series. Following her graduation from the Photo Academy in Amsterdam (December 2019), she created a series with a strong personal signature. These series have since won numerous national and international awards. She creates classical Fine Art portraits and Still Lifes by combining the beautiful use of light with references to symbolism, religion, art, and history.
While creating staged settings in the studio, she can draw attention to the possible aftermath of difficulties we may encounter. They transcend the individual story and reflect on what is happening around us. Personal stories are translated into more universal ones.
She is inspired by the great artists of previous centuries, especially the Greeks and Roman periods, the Renaissance, and the Golden Age.

Renata was selected for GUP New Talent 2020 & CTalent and nominated for the DuPho SO 2020 Student Award and the DuPho SO 2021 Award.

In addition, Dutrée was a finalist in prestigious international photography competitions such as Lensculture Portrait Awards 2020, Lensculture Black & White
Photography Awards 2020, Life Framer Colors Winners 2020, 15th POLLUX Awards 2020, TIFA Awards 2020, IPA Awards 2020, 6th Annual Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards 2021, 7th Annual Fine Art Photography Awards, 16th Pollux Awards 2021, 16th Julia Margaret Cameron Award 2021, LifeFramer Colors 2021 and Masters of Photography Photo Competition Black&White 2021, Le Prix de la Photographie de Paris (PX3) 2021, BBA Photography Prize 2021 and 17th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards Overall winner of Pro Series.
Dutrée’s work has been featured in international publications, including Life Framer’s inclusion of the series ‘Time will Tell’ in ‘The Collection’ (2020), Uncoated Platform, Collection of Contemporary Photo Talent with the series’ Time Will Tell’ (2020), Europe Now Journal (8-12-2020), Aesthetica Magazine (2020), Fotonostrum Magazine issue 3 (2020) and JaamZIN Creative Magazine issue 9 Vol 4 (30-09-2021).

EXHIBITIONS
■ 2022 group exhibition BBA Photography Prize Remix
■ 2021, Berlin, February 3-27, 2022
■ 2021 group exhibition 6th Biennial Gala Awards FotoNostrum, FotoNostrum Mediterranean House Of Photography, Barcelona, December 8th – January 8th
■ 2021 group exhibition BBA Photography Prize 2021, Berlin, November 26th, 2021 – December 12th, 2021
■ 2021 Biennial festival Masterly The Hague, 21st-24th October
■ 2021 solo exhibition State of Mind, Atelier K84 Amsterdam, 10th September-10th October
■ Berlin Photo Week 2021, BBA Photography Prize selection, 26th August-3rd September, Berlin
■ 2021 group exhibition Featureshoot Winners, East London, April
■ 2021 SXSW festival Austin, March 16-20, New Dutch Wave, selection of Dutch Photography (DuPho)
■ 2020 group exhibition Life Framer Photography Prize Edition VI, Rotterdam_Contour Gallery, 2021 Paris
Galerie&co119, 2021 Milan Officine Fotografiche
■ 2020 group exhibition Podium MH Hilversum
■ 2019 group exhibition Expo Still Amsterdam
■ 2019 group exhibition GUPNew Amsterdam
■ 2014 group exhibition masterclass Breda Photo

See the full article in Lens Magazine Edition #133