RE - DISCOVERIES

An art fair with a different perspective.

Mirjam Bleeker (1964) seeks the essence of human encounter as an independent photographer. Her work emerges from a deep curiosity about the world and the people who inhabit it. She doesn't travel to document, but to experience—to penetrate into worlds of life that are fundamentally different from her own.
Bleeker photographs with all her senses. Scents and sounds, though invisible to the camera, she translates into color and atmosphere. Her images are therefore more than visual recordings; they are sensory experiences in which the viewer is transported to the place where the image was created. She works intuitively, without preconceived concepts. Themes and stories unfold during her travels and searches with her camera.
Like an observer who must tale in the environment down to the smallest details, Bleeker knows how to position herself invisibly. Before she takes the camera in hand, she makes contact with people so they feel comfortable in her presence and don't alter their behavior. Her strength lies in the clarity and purity with which she captures these moments through an interplay of light, the natural posture of people in their own environment, and her ability to capture the tangible atmosphere of a place.
In her most recent presentations, Bleeker seeks a total experience. She creates handmade and colored frames for her photographs which she hangs against colored walls—thus background and framing become part of the story and strengthen the emotional charge of the image. This integrated experience in which photography, color and space come together into one coherent whole is characteristic of Bleeker's current working method.