Duclerck free erotic photography magazine: article on Ralph Kerpa

THE ARTIST
Name: Ralph Kerpa
Location: Geesthacht (Germany)
Birthday: 15. February 1965

ONLINE PORTFOLIO
Fetish and Fine Art Nudes: www.inspired-eyes.com

The photographs of Ralph Kerpa go beyond simplistic classification. When, for example, patent leather boots stretch into the air – only the boots, and yet the personality inside them can be grasped and just seems to be outside the image. The presence - or prevalence - of textiles in the fetish photography (the area where Kerpa with many of his work is usually located) seems to be natural. Not because the models are dressed with lacquer, leather, shoes or sometimes even with stick and whip.
But because – and this is what fetish means – the object stands for the real thing: to reify a desire, an addiction. It makes the personal character visible.
In his photographs, Kerpa is capturing attitudes. On the one hand, attitudes in the physical sense, but also the attitudes a man or a woman are taking towards another person and his wishes. In doing so, the photographer is concerned with the finest nuances – in the figurative sense to some extent with all mental shades of gray.
Thus, his work leaves space for different interpretations. If one browses either on-line or in printed editions of Ralph Kerpa’s work, in order to realize the essence and the essential of his photography, one returns to the question
raised at the beginning: To what extent is he an act photographer if clothes are in the picture and sometimes only clothes? So far that seems to be nothing special and hardly worth mentioning, as everywhere in the erotic art (as well as in the love itself) one dresses to undress, covers to uncover and detracts to emphasise. These are always nudes, i.e. in the original meaning of the word. It’s a matter of actions; his models are acting, interacting and reacting. It has been said occasionally that in his visual language the balances of power between man and woman are always present, and the conflict of the models with these balances of power is the subject of the photographic work.
Ralph Kerpa, born in 1965, who found from drawing (also charcoal drawing) to photography, lives as an independent designer and art photographer with his wife and collaborator nearby Hamburg.
Secluded in a special ambiance just at the Elbe, he occasionally keeps dates and events, as besides erotic and fine art, also people belong to his working area. As a designer who is in great demand in the PR- and advertising sector, he makes his compromises with the world of commerce – for the benefit of his customers, but never for the damage of its profile as an artist.
( Dr. Karl Kröhnke )

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