Uber famous DJ Myles Henrik says, “I’ve actually been taking photos substantially longer than I’ve been a DJ. My dad gave me my first little Olympus point and shoot when I was a teenager. Other than bashing on my drum kit, it was something I just loved to do. I’d take photos of everyone and everything. For me, it’s not about documenting a factual moment; rather creating something persuasive, something inherently lyrical. My photos are all like little poems to me. There are many stories within the frame.” He continues, “My dear friend Alison Mosshart of The Kills (and an amazing painter, artist), wrote this about me recently: “A camera has been at the end of his wrist since the day I met him. It’s part of his person. Walking down the street with him, his eyes are always scanning for the hole in the paper maché, the extra vision. While the heavenly palms scratch the sky all the colors of cake, Myles points his camera and captures the coin drop. He sees us here, and he sees this place in us.” Myles get inspiration from pretty much everything, sometimes the least obvious sources: a moment through a car window driving down a street, a conversation between two strangers, the color of the sky after it rains, smells, sounds… He’s also very fortunate to be surrounded by insanely talented people: such as his fiancé, who is an amazing fashion stylist is a constant source of inspiration, his friends who write the most impeccable music, who paint sonnets on canvas, “this city, this Los Angeles… they are all standouts. You just have to be open, to be present. The inspiration is all around just waiting for you to stand up and take notice.” Hendik doesn’t have a definite answer as to what defies his personal artistic style, “I think it’s my capacity to condense a layered, narrative into a single image. An image that perhaps at first glance seems private and esoteric, but upon further inspection reveals a truer, perhaps even more visceral pull. At the surface, there might be a shadow of sadness, a tug of despair, the lean of loss; but if you look closer you’ll see the true hope, the quietly deafening chorus that is romance. Apologies, I do tend to go on a bit… and it’s never in a linear fashion.”
Photography and fashion are both art forms Hendrik admires deeply; they have this incredible symbiosis for him. “Fashion is an expression of how you see the world and in many ways how the world sees you. My DREAMS OF L.A. show at Maxfield is a poem of my home, my city. How I see it and how it sees me.” “Everything I’ve done in my life hasn’t really been planned or thought out, at least not consciously. It’s all been created on an intuitive level rather than an analytical one. DJ’ing started through my love of music, then it turned into something way more than I imagined. Same thing with photography: I’ve just kept a camera in my hand for forever, always looking for the moment to compel me to capture it. And it always does. Everything that’s happened with my art and music has evolved pretty naturally and fluidly. Taking my work public is a perfect example: my now gallerist Holly Purcell of FF-1051 Gallery stumbled across a book of my photographs I had given to Alison as a gift. She suggested printing a few of them to take to an art fair in Miami. I had never before printed and framed any of my photos. Instagram was as large as these images had ever stretched. This was how it began. Another art fair in New York followed, then the Maxfield show with much larger prints. No pretense, just natural motion.” Next up Myles is planning to take Art Basel in December and MACA in Mexico City in 2019. “I would love to take a more fleshed out version of Dreams of L.A. to London too and to release a book. That’s something I’ve been working on for some time. I also plan to release some music this year… I’m going to be quite busy. I have so many images, so many songs, I just want to share them all.” Bring it on.
Story by Bart Owenby.