Painting with light

Stars twinkle, lights flash. Light is incredibly fast and extremely fleeting. Photography captures light and shadow, and it fixes movement and time. Paintings, on the other hand, are static images with figures, lettering or signs on a solid background. How can you combine the two? How can you fix a tracer? Photography makes it possible.

Light is a popular subject in photography. Many modern artists already practiced light experiments and made surreal images with the help of simple light sources. In our photo workshop, we will take a closer look at this light magic and capture it photographically. After a short theoretical introduction to light photography and long exposure, the young participants will dive into darkened rooms and paint abstract figures, shapes and lettering – using only light and camera. For the workshop, different light sources can be brought along and own experiments with flashlight, bicycle backlight or light chain can be made.

Eva Gjaltema studied cultural studies at the University of Amsterdam and photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. Her work has been exhibited internationally in museums, galleries and festivals (Fotomuseum Den Haag, Frauenmuseum Wiesbaden and Rencontres d'Arles). She works mainly with photography, (analog) collage as well as mixed techniques and explores themes such as family relationships and identities.

Mirjana Vrbaški, born in Montreal in Canada and raised in Belgrade in Serbia, lives and works as a freelance artist in Berlin. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Photography from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2010. Since then, she has focused her work on portraiture, where she has developed a distinctive visual signature. Her ongoing series Verses of Emptiness has been widely exhibited internationally, including at the Fotomuseum Den Haag (NL), Museum Kranenburgh (NL), and Transformer Station (USA), and is represented in prestigious collections.