LUUK DE HAAN
(1964, NL)
Luuk de Haan is a contemporary artist who explores and pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium. His work exists at the intersection of abstraction and reality, employing photographic techniques to investigate new visual and conceptual possibilities. De Haan’s titles often make indirect references to narrative or figurative elements, offering subtle clues that invite the viewer to engage in a metaphorical reading of his work. While his images may at first appear purely abstract, his series often refer in a direct way to objects from the real world, guiding the viewer toward a specific interpretation and meaning of the image.
His distinctive technique involves photographing digitally manipulated images that he presents as an on-screen slideshow. These images feature lines of varying brightness and tonal intensity. By capturing these projections photographically, he creates a new, layered reality in which digital and analogue processes merge. The result is a visual language that is not only aesthetically compelling, but also provokes questions about perception, materiality, and the nature of photography itself.
With his body of work, De Haan builds upon the tradition of experimental photography, yet infuses it with a contemporary and radical approach. His work invites slow looking, allowing details, rhythm, and the interplay of light to gradually reveal themselves. In doing so, he creates a space where the viewer can drift between recognition and abstraction, between the world as we know it and the world as he reimagines it.
