The Impossible Task [The Mole and the Sun] 2018

Pieter Henket's photograph, "The Impossible Task", captures a moment of encounter or exchange. It's set in a yard at night, the light hitting a man draped in swathes of rough fabric, posed in front of a boy stood on a small wooden table. The houses behind them have a kind of magical realism feel to them. Henket is known for his portraiture, but this is no simple shot. He's known for making images in film, and I can only imagine him and his crew lugging their cameras and lighting to this location in order to construct it. It’s a task of staging, of placing figures to suggest a narrative, and somehow it puts me in mind of other artist’s works, even the paintings of someone like Matisse. There’s the potential here for storytelling, for mythmaking, which is something that all artists are engaged in.