Brussels Beauties

Collected & edited by Erik Kessels.
The third in the found photography series collecting images of attractiveness from around the world. After Bangkok Beauties and Bombay Beauties, Kessels focuses on the smaller scale story of one Belgian girl. Unaware of her own prettiness, she turns a pensive face to the camera in image after image. The repetitive pictures build a quietly intense atmosphere, like stills from an old movie. We are left to speculate on almost everything about her: age, period when the photos were made, exact location (the Belgian capital of the title is absent inside). Only the consistency of her ambiguous expression is a certainty. A mini Mona Lisa, she seems alternately sadly happy, and happily sad, a strangely complex and mature set of emotions for one of her years.
Black & white, 170 x 255 mm, 40 pages, soft cover, edition of 500.