Dirk Karsten: From Commercial Photography to Fine Art Abstraction

Key facts

• Dirk Karsten is a Dutch photographer and commercial film director represented by David Grant Art.
• He spent more than three decades in international advertising, creating campaigns for Toyota, BMW, KLM, Jumeirah Hotels and Resorts, Philips, and the Red Cross.
• Karsten received his first camera at age fourteen during a trip to North Africa.
• His Salton Sea project began in 2014 around the deteriorating settlements surrounding California's Salton Sea.
• The Salton Sea series was shown in Personal Structures: Open Borders in Venice in 2017.
• Works such as Posing Beauty and My Tuscany Horse combine photography with digital intervention, illustration, and extensive post-production.
• The Big Boy series uses large format film and available light to photograph animals with the formality of human sitters.
• Karsten produces large format archival fine art photographic prints, generally in limited editions, and is developing a new body of large scale work.