Galerie Bart is proud to present Femke Dekkers (1980, the Netherlands) at this year’s Unseen Amsterdam. In her new series, Femke seeks to deepen the concept of ‘perspective’. She does this by concentrating on the dynamics of her painting installations and the interplay created when this takes place in front of the camera.

Femke’s work starts with one or more cameras and her studio, which she sees as her blank canvas. With this as her basis, she intuitively uses a range of hybrid materials, varying from canvas and paper to wood and paint, to build and paint a set. Tools lying around the studio – like ladders, brushes and tape – become part of the set and are silent witnesses to the process. Femke adapts and manipulates the set by constantly moving back and forth between set and camera. In her search for lines, surfaces and patterns, the studio becomes a playground of sorts, in which anything can change. However, one thing never changes: the position of Femke’s camera. With this basis in place, her aim is to achieve a harmonious image, in which lines flow seamlessly into each other and colourful surfaces become one and connect architectural elements.

In her Still Life series, Femke scales down her work and presents it in a more intimate setting. She created this series during her residency at the Vincent van Gogh Huis in Zundert. Inspired by Van Gogh, Femke created work based on a classic theme: a vase of flowers on a table. By playing with perspective and three-dimensional materials on a flat surface, Femke creates a surrealistic image in which nothing is what it seems.

Femke’s use of layers to play with perception is also evident in her series of analogue contact prints. Various negatives and cut-out masks are superimposed to create a new perspective in just one photograph. Last but not least, black and white exposure gives the line composition a more pronounced role in the totality of the image.

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