Pieter de Koninck was born on Long Island and grew up across three continents — in Mexico, France, and Belgium — before settling in Los Angeles. That itinerant formation left a permanent mark: his eye has always been drawn to the familiar made strange, the ordinary world seen slightly sideways.
He spent four decades in advertising, first as a graphic designer at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and later as a Senior Art Director and Associate Creative Director at Grey Advertising, McCann-Erickson, and Frontline Communications. His clients included the Los Angeles Times, Hilton Hotels, Nestlé, Lockheed, and Boeing. His work earned multiple Telly, New York Festival, Mobius, and Lulu Awards. When he retired in 2015, he returned to photography in earnest — and to film in particular, from 2017 onward.
His current work spans several ongoing projects: Flesh & Bone (figure studies and still lifes), Studies in Blue and Suspended Animation (Flemish-inspired still life studies of vegetables and natural objects), Square Solace (a book project), and South of Pico, a documentary series begun in 2022 about the neighborhood immediately south of Santa Monica's Pico Boulevard.
In 2019, Regal House Publishing released The Purpose of Things, a collaboration with the late poet Peter Serchuk pairing forty of de Koninck's photographs with forty poems. His work has been exhibited in group shows both physical and virtual, and has appeared in Dodho, SHOTS, All About Photo, and Edge of Humanity magazines.
Collections
International Museum of Dance
Group Exhibitions
2026 Arles Off | Worlds In View, Recontres d’Arles Pro Week, Les Murs Blancs Gallery, Arles, France.
2026 16th Self-Published Photobook Exhibition (for South of Pico), Griffin Museum of Phootgraphy. Juror Crista Dix.
2026 Urban, Suburban, Rural, NYC4PA, Honorable Mention. Juror Paula Tognarelli.
2025 Behind The Glitter, Washington Corridor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2025 International Museum of Dance, Duncan Miller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2025 Nude Geographies, Praxis Gallery, St. Paul, MN
2025 Love Letter to Los Angeles, Era Studio, Los Angeles, 2 photos
2025 International Museum of Dance Collection, Duncan Miller Gallery, Los Angeles
2025 Places and Spaces, Decagon Gallery, New York, online exhibition. Juror Matthew Christopher.
2025 Apparel, NYC4PA, New York. Honorable Mention. Juror Niamh Treacy
2025 The Modern Nude, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC, online exhibition, 3 photos
2025 Diptych, Praxis Gallery, St. Paul, MN
2025 Portraiture: Unveiling Identity, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury VT, online exhibition, 2 photos. Juror Jeff Curto.
2025 Monochrome, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury VT, online exhibition. Juror Douglas Beasley.
2024 Monochrome, NYC4PA, New York. Juror Selection. Juror Nancy Ori.
2024 Primary Colors, NYC4PA, New York. Honorable Mention. Juror Louise Fedotov-Clements.
2024 Echoes of the Unconscious, TAG Gallery, Los Angeles.
2024 Snapshot America: A Portrait of the United States, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts.
2024 Your Daily Photograph, September 26. Duncan Miller Gallery Square Print Sale.
2024 Wandering Curves, NYC4PA, New York. Second Place. Juror Darren Ching, KLOMPCHING Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.
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 photos
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 photos
Competitions
2025 Photo Review Competition, online exhibition, juror Peter Fetterman, 2 photos
2023 Dodho Magazine Nude Photography Awards, Finalist
2021 Photo Review Competition, Winner’s Gallery, juror Christopher James
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
2026 Stories Found in Ordinary Street Moments online feature in Edge of Humanity magazine
2024 Night Timin’ published by Domino Press
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