The work of Amsterdam-based Awoiska van der Molen develops from a desire to comprehend the essence of the isolated world she photographs. Spending long periods of time in solitude in remote landscapes, she slowly uncovers the identity of the place. Her large-scale, black-and-white images convey her experience of the emotional and physical qualities of the places she photographs. The meditative process of photographing the landscape continues in the darkroom, where van der Molen prints her gelatin silver prints by hand. Of her process, she writes, “I often experience the scenes in my works as borderlands. They can be the beginning or the end, life or death, something that invites or something to turn away from. I only make a picture when I sense these paradoxes.”
Van der Molen studied at Minerva Art Academy, The Netherlands, and at Hunter College, New York, before receiving her MFA in photography at St. Joost Academy in The Netherlands. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including FOAM Fotografie Museum, Amsterdam; FoMu Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium; and The Photographers’ Gallery, London. Van der Molen’s work is included in the collections of institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; and Museum of Photography, Seoul. In 2017, Van der Molen received the Larry Sultan Photography Award and was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Her work is currently on view in the exhibition The Grain of the Present at Pier 24 Photography.
Lecture as part of the Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program, organized by Pier 24 Photography in collaboration with California College of the Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Thursday, October 5, from 7PM
More information at http://pier24.org/lecture/awoiska-van-der-molen/
Information
Timken Lecture Hall, California College of the Arts
1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, CA, USA
October 05, 2017 to October 05, 2017
