Femke
Femke wanted to be portrayed with an oil painting she made, because painting had helped her through a dark period of her life. The painting is of an anatomically correct heart, broken but restored in the Kintsugi tradition, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold. As a philosophy, kintsugi is similar to wabi-sabi; embracing the flawed or imperfect, and recognizing beauty in the scars of life.
Femke was submerged for this shoot. I photographed her when she broke through the surface of the water, visualizing the motto 'Luctor et emergo'; I struggle and emerge/overcome.