Peter Henry Waterschoot/visual artist

“Ma parla.. Oh, dì ancora qualcosa, angelo splendente, così glorioso in questa notte, lassù, sopra la mia testa, come un messaggero alato del cielo quando abbaglia gli occhi stupì“.

This quote means that, to the infatuated Romeo, Juliet looks as glorious as an angel tonight and shines above him like a winged messenger from heaven. The photography of Pascale Dobbelaere reverbs this kind of  bewilderment, not with persons but with humanity, not with locations but with the world; a love of things, material and immaterial.

White Noise. Fake Rococo. Make up. Unleaded Gasoline. Sticky Lipstick. Summer Rain. Smell of Trees. White linen. Cracks in a Record. Caruso Singing. A rattling Movie Reel.

Fog. Headlights pierce that very same fog. The flare of light reveals shards of a landscape. Hills with altitude and a moon that flickers behind foliage. It might be France, or Germany, somewhere in Europe. The viewpoint is that of the passenger. You sense relationship with the driver. It’s the comfortable silence between them that gives it away. They enjoy their silences just as much as their evening conversations, invariably accompanied by a subtle red wine. They both wear leather gloves and sunglasses when travelling, regardless what weather. She takes off her gloves, adjusts the focus of the camera and points it at the window-shield, capturing a moving landscape. You recollect a romantic ideal you used to cherish when you were a twenty-something. Thirty-something. Something. The beginning of the person you have become.

Together with the photographer, we look back at the moment standing at the poolside, waiting for the girl to come out of the water, dripping, first signs of goosebumps. The click of the shutter. The props don’t rhyme with the Icelandic blue water; lipstick-red and soaked nylon stockings. Dobbelaere works the zone where fiction chases truth and vice versa. We all generate our own truths.

Look at those honest eyes prying into your own vulnerable spots.

There are different models. One of her models has a bit of an Isabella Rosselini-feel to me. I can’t make up wether it’s in her posture or in her jawline.  She sits in a chair, most comfortable and self assured, her gaze leads you to the movies. The photographer captures all of this, and more, in an elusive moment of doubt, but nevertheless steeped in connection.

There are secrets, whispers, dormant fairytales. The photographs read like short stories. Her images inter react. Separate voices gradually form a choir and sing a hard to grasp polyphonic chorus. We look at a wunderwall of mermaids, mountains, waiter’s in uniform, raindrops, high heels and empty chairs. There is waiting. There is an imminent factor of fleeting time.

Textile is omnipresent. P.D. knows her pink silk from her golden lycra, her black satin from her synthetic fiber. The materials she uses enhance a posed detachment. It’s puzzling. A couple making love, reminds me of Nan Goldin’s Devil’s Playground. There’s deep emotion countering the detachment again.

She is her subject and she becomes her dreams. She is a mermaid. She is the girl with the white wig. She is staring back at herself. Eyes wide open she enters the infinite tunnel of the self-portrait, Spiegel im Spiegel. There where things happen beyond the limits of perception. Never unravel. Play the daring game. Truth or dare. Explore your insolence. Patterns take a two-dimensional form. There she is. La voyageuse insolente comes and goes. She Appears and disappears. Insolent; she is just as impudent, unashamed, unabashed, impertinent, audacious as she is curious, careful and caring. There is nothing but honesty in her fiction.

PETER HENRY W. 18.05.21, Gent.