WOUTER DERUYTTER
Noted Belgian photographer, Wouter Deruytter, currently
lives and works in New York. Having spent much of
his career capturing images of vanishing and fading
cultures around the world, he is especially known for
his photographs of people in the masks and costumes
of their identities. Using his camera as a "mask".
Deruytter's work takes him into the closed worlds and
marginal societies of such groups as Egyptian circus
performers, New York drag queens and rich Arab oil
sheikhs. While the lives of his subjects may seem
theatrical or eccentric, Deruytter's noble images make no judgments, but merely attempt to offer objective documentation. In 1997, his attention turned to the American West. The result was published in his book, Cowboy Code.

Deruytter's discovery of photography came at the age of 17 during a Belgian television strike when they continuously broadcast Roman Polanski movies. "I wanted to be Polanski." While still in art school at Ghent's Royal Academy, he began his first series of photographs of Brussels nightlife and a collaboration with artist Keith Haring. From Belgium, he went to New York to study at the International Center of Photography. Since then, Deruytter has been traveling and taking pictures. His work has been exhibited extensively in museums and galleries worldwide.