Didier Engels
View the collectionA Belgian photographer of ports and cargo ships, Didier Engels searches within salt-eroded hulls for what a textile designer once sought in fabric: texture, traces, and time.
From the docks to the image
His passion for ports dates back to childhood and was confirmed at the age of twenty, when he worked as a docker in Zeebrugge. More than thirty years spent searching for materials followed: twenty-five years as a textile designer, then five years as an interior architect.
A turning point in 2015
In January 2015, he began personal photographic work with the series DRY DOCK and KAAIEN. The subject has remained the same ever since: maritime traffic, the majesty of hulls, and the marks left by tides on metal.
A materialist's perspective
His eye for textiles has never left him. Faded colors, sedimentary deposits, oxidation: what might have been merely a documentary record becomes a composition, where graphic form and color take precedence over the subject.