The “soul of a model” is not something you can literally see, but something you try to approach. It is that elusive point where presence, attitude, light and emotion come together, even before the image exists, and sometimes only becomes visible when the image has already been made.

When you want to represent that soul as well as possible on paper, in clay or in photography, you are actually searching for something that cannot be fixed in place: a tension between the outside and the inside. It is not about perfection or resemblance, but about truth in feeling. A slightly uneven gaze, a tension in the hands, a silence in the face, these are often the moments in which someone becomes truly present in the work.

In clay, that soul becomes tangible and slow, as if thoughts gain weight. On paper, it becomes a trace, a line that hesitates and searches. In photography, it becomes a fraction of a second in which everything aligns without being controlled.

The philosophy behind it is that as a maker you are not capturing something, but meeting something. The model is not an object to reproduce, but a presence that briefly reveals itself. The image that results is never the soul itself, but an echo of it, a translation into material.

And perhaps the core lies exactly there: the closer you try to get, the more you realize that the soul cannot be possessed. Only approached.

Kenzië Meynaerts Ceusters
02/08/2026