Amsterdam-based photographer and founder/art director of award-winning interior design magazine Objekt International Hans Fonk is drawn to drama. An exhibited artist in Beijing, Hong Kong, France, Belgium, Netherlands, and USA, his solo exhibition entitled Dutch Bonsai, series III, premiered at ARTERIAL on June 29th. It showcases a series of large-scale photographs printed on canvas and coated with Chinese pigments and tempera.

“Most of the time photography is too flat. I’m always trying to bring it out of the flatness.”

Fonk’s photography is acclaimed for its dynamism. His use of shadow and contrast magnify the forms he photographs and create intimate, vibrant scenes. A fashion photographer for decades before starting his own magazine with full creative control in 1991, his art style evolved in opposition to commercial photography.

Long-time collaborator and honorary editor-in-chief of Objekt, Sasha Josipovicz of Toronto architecture and design company Studio Pyramid, shares his colleague’s European design sensibilities:

“In North America, especially the Canadian design community, [photography] tends to be very bland and it fits into magazines. But for his magazine, you really had to be a design misfit to capture and to catch his attention so he could photograph you.”

Fittingly, Fonk's solo art projects, like Dutch Bonsai, are just as obsessed with vibrant and formidable forms. The inspiration for the series is the warped, sculptural trees along the Dutch coastline that, after years of tug of war with the wind, have come to resemble the perfectly curated and cultivated forms of the Japanese bonsai. 

“In Japan, people can look at one bonsai tree for half an hour, and for me, these trees have the same thing. They are so formed by nature. It is beautiful in itself. Nobody touches it. And it has a strong force. That's basically what I was fascinated by.”

Fonk takes great care in the preparation and process of his art-making, whether it is the complicated technical aspects of photography or the tricky process of layering tempera. His work is intense and immersive. The process must be perfectly executed; “otherwise the end is nothing.”

“When I start photographing, I am very concentrated. Very very concentrated. And when I'm finished I'm completely exhausted.”

Fonk looks forward to fostering relationships with local Canadian artists and architects and furthering his Toronto connections through ongoing collaborations with Studio Pyramid as well as a growing relationship with ARTERIAL. 

Find more from Hans Fonk here: http://www.hansfonk.com/about

Written by Sophie Sobol