Tales of Aperture

Mickaël Van Nieuwenhove (°1990) is a Belgian photographer / lens-based artist from Aalst.

His ‘brand’, “Tales of Aperture'“, refers to his desire to capture stories with his camera.

Since 2023, he has been exploring multiple facets of photography. His emerging style is the type of black and white photography that can best be described as ‘grainy, filthy, and a little bit of punk’.

He is heavily inspired by the concept of “metamodernism”. The “meta-modernist” approach – first coined by Vermeulen and van den Akker in 2010 – is signified by a purposeful oscillation between “a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naiveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity” (“Notes on metamodernism”, Vermeulen & van den Akker, 2017).

Besides this ‘post-post-modernist’ framework, Van Nieuwenhove also draws inspiration from photographers such as Robert Darch and Tatsuo Suzuki, and the cinematography of “Akira” (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988) and “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989).

He is currently working on a photo series focusing on fragile solidity.

Additionally, he loves all things sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and Godzilla. He’s also sucker for cherry cola and Dr. Pepper Vanilla Float.