Since the age of 15, Pieter has rarely been without a camera. He studied fine art, advertising and graphic design at various schools in Southern California. His professional life started as the second man on a two-man crew shooting a documentary film about Guatemala.
In the late 80’s he entered the world of four-star advertising agencies as a Senior Art Director, later Associate Creative Director. Before that, Pieter worked as a designer and department head at the now-defunct Hearst newspaper, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.
Since retiring from his 40-year career in advertising, he has returned to his first passion, photography.
Pieter was born on Long Island, NY and later grew up in Mexico, France and Belgium. Upon his return to the States, he settled in Los Angeles after a short stint in Las Vegas. He is fluent in Spanish and French and occasionally speaks Franish.
In 2020, Regal House published The Purpose of Things, a collaboration with poet Peter Serchuk, featuring 40 original photos by Pieter de Koninck.
Group Exhibitions
2024 Soul of Your City, Fabrik Projects, LA Art Show 2024.
2023 Spring, Chateau Gallery, Lexington, KY, online exhibition.
2022 Portrait: Self and Others, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury VT, online exhibition. Juror Aline Smithson.
2022 The Surreal, Chateau Gallery, Lexington, KY, online exhibition.
2022 Black and White and All the Greys Between, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, juror Eric Kunsman.
2022 The Everyday Landscape, PhotoSC, juror Lisa Hostetler, former curator, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
2021 Surrealism: The Unusual and the Subversive, PhotoSC, juror Natalie Dupecher, Assistant Curator of Modern Art at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.
2021 Your Daily Photograph, July 3, 2021 and July 6, 2022. Duncan Miller Gallery
2021 16th Pollux Awards, Barcelona, Spain (3)
2021 Six Feet: Boundaries, Belonging & Becoming, Revolve Gallery, Asheville, NC
2019 Radical Beauty, Malibu Rising, Malibu City Hall, Malibu, CA
2018 Santa Monica College Juried Exhibition
2017 Lens Op De Mens International Fotofestival, Overpelt, Belgium (2)
Competitions
2024 Soul of Your City, Fabrik Projects, Finaist
2023 Dodho Magazine Nude Photgraphy Awards, Finalist
2021 The Photo Review 2021 Competition
2021 16th Pollux Awards, Barcelona, Spain: 3rd Place, Still Life, Single; Honorable Mention, Black & White, Single; Honorable Mention, Nude & Figure, Single
2019 International Photo Awards, One Shot: Street Photography: People: Honorable Mention
2017 I Shot It Black & White Competition, Mark of Excellence
2017 I Shot It Street Photo Competition, Mark of Excellence
2017 LensCulture Street Photography Awards, Competition Gallery
2017 LensCulture Portrait Awards, Competition Gallery
Publications
2023 Nude, published by Dodho Magazine
2022 SHOTS Magazine, Issue No. 156: Self Portraits, p. 40
2021 SHOTS Magazine, Issue No. 152: Secret Worlds, p. 19
2020 The Purpose of Things (with poems by Peter Serchuk), Regal House
2019 Dodho Magazine, online feature on the project Synchronicity or the Choreography of Chance (11/11/2019)
2018 L’Oeil de la Photographie, Holiday Pictures (July 16 & August 29)
Artist’s Statement
My images reflect my journeys and day-to-day experiences on the California coast and the American Southwest. Perhaps the photos take me rather than the other way around.
At first glance, the photos may look like mundane scenes. Although the images may seem narrative, they do not document a story or condition. I am not trying to elevate the banal, glorify the everyday. I meet the ordinary on its own terms, sometimes finding the enigmatic and the fascinating along the way. What I try to show is what the scenes say to me.
I make my pictures a little unsettling, provocative but with a quiet wit. What I try to show is there is no one single way of seeing – it strikes a chord with me when I can make incongruous elements come together. In a subdued way, my photos leave more questions than answers, they are the pictures of the pauses between words.
Pieter de Koninck
pieter_de_k@yahoo.com