PAULIEN DUBELAAR

Paulien deals with existential questions, such as: the meaning of life and death, how can we live a significant existence, who are we as humans? Where answers are not readily available, she tries to explore with her images: in greatness and insignificance, invulnerability and transience, in stillness and motion, in darkness and in light. She feels connected to the ideas of existentialist philosophers and uses them as inspiration in her photographic oeuvre.

In her images Paulien shows moments that are detached from their past and their future. She wants to seduce the viewer to embrace every moment anew, to feel love for what is, and to even cherish fate.Paulien uses different techniques to edit her images, such as etching, zokin gake, and cyanotype. By using these techniques, she adds an extra dimension to bring the images to life. The photographs are evocative, with a mixture of dreamlike content and pictorial aesthetics. There’s an intersection of romance, gothic darkness and fantasy.

Paulien (1974) graduated from the Amsterdam Photo Academy in December 2023.
Besides her creative work, Paulien is active in education, the last 12 years in management functions.