For Collection No. 12, we are pleased to collaborate with German photographer Isabelle Wenzel, who elevates the art of self-portraiture with physical feats that draw on her professional acrobat training. Her bold, graphic photographs contrast the swirling volume of Merlette’s pieces with the shapes of her own figure and the placid coast of the Netherlands. Find out more about Wenzel’s artistic approach and what went into this unique shoot.
Q: Where do you get the inspiration for your shoots? What inspired your shoot for Merlette?
A: I’m very much inspired by what surrounds me: by nature, by landscape, also architecture, or urban settings. It‘s always about how I do feel from a body perspective towards it and which emotional reactions I get from it. For Merlette, we were shooting at the beachside close to Amsterdam. It was all about the light, the clear blue Dutch sky, the wind, the sea, and this wide openness that was surrounding me.
Another big part of my inspiration derives from the garments I’m wearing. Every piece gave me a feeling of its own and turned me into another character. I work a lot with improvisation and like to see what happens within the moment. I literally get into a flow of movements; I dance, run, jump, act without acting, I react to my surroundings, the wind blows into my dress and I let it flow. I fall into the sand enjoying the feeling of gravity on my body. Touch the ground; sand everywhere, on my skin, in my hair. Try to get it off by running and jumping; taste the salty air, feel the water splashing on my legs, and become one with the landscape and the wide sky. I’m part of this world; being small, being big. I’m powerful, I’m lost. Losing the sense of time. One moment turns into the entire emotions of a lifetime. I keep on running, get out of breath, and hear my heartbeat. I rest; being part of the landscape, feeling calm and clear. After the rush of movements, I turn into a meditative state, feel the here, feel the now. I was alive.
Q: As a female artist, what does it mean to you to work with female-founded brands or other female creatives?
A: My work is a lot about empowerment and overcoming dogmas and duality. So working for a female-founded brand makes sense entirely.
Q: Your photography requires so much of you physically. Do you choreograph your movement in advance or is it spontaneous as you shoot?
A: Improvisation is an essential part of my process. Everything is based on trial and error. So things evolve indeed very spontaneously. On the other hand, I have followed this conceptual scheme for more than 10 years already. Within this method, I have developed very much my own body language and I started to understand much better which movements and actions are self-evident to me. So there are moments where certain sequences reappear and where I follow my routine. A while ago I started to understand my shootings as a ritual. A ritual that is about how to articulate something within the frame of a photograph.
Q: How does your time as a professional athlete affect your work as an artist?
A: I do think that my artistic process comes very close to the repetitive structure of professional sports training. Repetition might be on one hand quite boring but I do believe that it's fundamental to what creates mastery of any skill.
Q: What do you want people to take away from your imagery and your art?
A: I want people to enjoy my images and maybe start to wonder about our physical being in the world. I hope that people might get into a similar mindset like myself while performing and that I would perfectly extend their feeling of time.
Imagery and performed by Isabelle Wenzel.
