honorable mention
Mo Verlaan netherlands
title
Book of Light
The making of these self-portraits for Book of Light, posing myself repeatedly in a space of light on a cold floor of the former Convitto Palmieri in Lecce, connected me profoundly to feelings I seem have locked somewhere inside my body, to fears that ebb and flow through me.
That space of light is a moment in time. It is not so much time as told by the clock, though naturally it is the sun creating and minutely altering the shape, revealing my body and casting shadows. That space of light is time as duration, it is time as experienced within us.
Each portrait has gone through a series of individual manipulations. They have been developed in the darkroom and hand printed on unique old papers, they received additional layers while printing. These prints were scanned and digital transparencies were made to create photogravures, a light-based intaglio printmaking process. UV light ‘etches’ the photograph into the light-sensitive polymer plate and then printed on very thin green washi paper with gold flakes. This paper is handmade and will give each print a unique look.
Working with only a few basic images in this manner, using old photographic processes, somehow enabled me to transpose the sense of time as duration into the images. By repeating the images and manipulating them each individually, the self-portraits came to express different emotions, different moments as well as a search within to the self and to the now.
She studied for a year at Atelier Smedsby in Paris and attended masterclasses in analogue photography with Dirk Braeckman, Anders Petersen, Machiel Botman and Leo Divendal. Lately she has been studying several old alternative photographic techniques.
Very recently she was awarded with the 2nd prize single image Nude at the 16th JM Cameron Award in 2021. The series Undercurrent was Winner of The Photo Award at The Mt. Rokko International Photography Festival 2019 in Kobe, she was Finalist at the Hariban Award and Winner single image at the 9th JM Cameron Award in 2016. She was awarded with several Honorable Mentions in the past years (Minimalist Photography Awards 2019, IPA 2017 & 2018, TIPA, Monovision, FAPA, 11th, 13th, 15th and 16th JMCA).
Mo Verlaan participated in exhibitions in The Netherlands and abroad, her work has been shown in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Amersfoort, Den Helder, Groningen, London, Berlin, Athens, Arles, Barcelona, Budapest, Los Angeles, Hudson NY, Kobe and Hyderabad.
Her work was published in Thinking About Photography #Time, The F-Stop Magazine #106, the All About Photo Magazine #1 and in the NEW 2017, 100 New Dutch Photography Talents, by GUP.
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entry description
All my life, I have found it difficult to put my emotions into words. Even more so in recent years, during which my partner and I have been living in a transformational void of uncertainty, love, fear and hope as she has been diagnosed with a deadly illness.The making of these self-portraits for Book of Light, posing myself repeatedly in a space of light on a cold floor of the former Convitto Palmieri in Lecce, connected me profoundly to feelings I seem have locked somewhere inside my body, to fears that ebb and flow through me.
That space of light is a moment in time. It is not so much time as told by the clock, though naturally it is the sun creating and minutely altering the shape, revealing my body and casting shadows. That space of light is time as duration, it is time as experienced within us.
Each portrait has gone through a series of individual manipulations. They have been developed in the darkroom and hand printed on unique old papers, they received additional layers while printing. These prints were scanned and digital transparencies were made to create photogravures, a light-based intaglio printmaking process. UV light ‘etches’ the photograph into the light-sensitive polymer plate and then printed on very thin green washi paper with gold flakes. This paper is handmade and will give each print a unique look.
Working with only a few basic images in this manner, using old photographic processes, somehow enabled me to transpose the sense of time as duration into the images. By repeating the images and manipulating them each individually, the self-portraits came to express different emotions, different moments as well as a search within to the self and to the now.
about the photographer
After graduating from the Rietveld Art Academy, Mo Verlaan (1963) started out in experimental theatre, creating sets on location as well as performing. Her love for travelling and cooking made Mo found the company De Drie Gezusters catering to (inter)national filmcrews from a converted truck. A growing passion for photography made her enter the Photo Academy. She graduated in 2016 with a joint exhibition and her first book Resonance was launched, in which she explored the impermanence of light, the brief and fleeting beauty of landscapes, architecture and people.She studied for a year at Atelier Smedsby in Paris and attended masterclasses in analogue photography with Dirk Braeckman, Anders Petersen, Machiel Botman and Leo Divendal. Lately she has been studying several old alternative photographic techniques.
Very recently she was awarded with the 2nd prize single image Nude at the 16th JM Cameron Award in 2021. The series Undercurrent was Winner of The Photo Award at The Mt. Rokko International Photography Festival 2019 in Kobe, she was Finalist at the Hariban Award and Winner single image at the 9th JM Cameron Award in 2016. She was awarded with several Honorable Mentions in the past years (Minimalist Photography Awards 2019, IPA 2017 & 2018, TIPA, Monovision, FAPA, 11th, 13th, 15th and 16th JMCA).
Mo Verlaan participated in exhibitions in The Netherlands and abroad, her work has been shown in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Amersfoort, Den Helder, Groningen, London, Berlin, Athens, Arles, Barcelona, Budapest, Los Angeles, Hudson NY, Kobe and Hyderabad.
Her work was published in Thinking About Photography #Time, The F-Stop Magazine #106, the All About Photo Magazine #1 and in the NEW 2017, 100 New Dutch Photography Talents, by GUP.
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