Photo © Eva Gjaltema-Theden
Conceptual - NOMINEE: Eva Gjaltema-Theden
Patchwork
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For the longterm series ‚Patchwork’, Eva Gjaltema is looking closer at the nature of the ‚Patchwork’ family. Nowadays more marriages are not holding together untill the end, which means that more parents and children are growing up together within a new family construction, we call the patchwork family. Being constantly confronted with a family history where she was not part of, Gjaltema is trying to find her way within her new family in Germany since 2012 as a stepmother. Becoming a mother herself changed again her relationship with her stepdaughters and husband and a new family history is being written parallel to the original family history.
For her collages about the continuing underlying tensions within such a family and shifting identities, she made use of her polaroid pictures she made of her family members and their surroudings since the beginning they started to form a family. She cut out the figures which leaves a frame, where she combines the frames into new portraits, just like the identities within a patchwork family are continously shifting and changing. The abstract forms and plain colors together with the cutting marks of the paper, accentuate how different views come together and try to excist as a new strong object.
About author:
Eva Gjaltema (1979, Zwolle, NL) sees photography primarily as a medium for recording
time, memories and transience. In her work she refers to universal themes, like the
family institution and the influence of history on the present. She uses different kinds of
media from found footage, (photo) albums, collage, film, analog and digital photography.
Eva majored in Cultural Studies at the University of Amsterdam and has a Bachelor
Degree in Photographic Design at the Royal Academy for the Visual Arts in The Hague
(KABK). She was selected ‘Best of photography departments art academies Netherlands
2008’ by the Amsterdam Centre of Photography ‘. In 2010 she was nominated for the
Dutch Doc Award with her work ‚Famylje’ which was exhibited at the Noorderlicht
Photofestival 2010. Her work ‚Illumination I’ was part of the New Dutch Photography
Talent in 2012. Her recent work ‚Fernweh & Heimweh’ was shortlisted for the Athens
Photofestival 2015 and was featured ‘Editors Pick’ and ‘Conceptual Project’ at Lensculture.
For her collages about the continuing underlying tensions within such a family and shifting identities, she made use of her polaroid pictures she made of her family members and their surroudings since the beginning they started to form a family. She cut out the figures which leaves a frame, where she combines the frames into new portraits, just like the identities within a patchwork family are continously shifting and changing. The abstract forms and plain colors together with the cutting marks of the paper, accentuate how different views come together and try to excist as a new strong object.
About author:
Eva Gjaltema (1979, Zwolle, NL) sees photography primarily as a medium for recording
time, memories and transience. In her work she refers to universal themes, like the
family institution and the influence of history on the present. She uses different kinds of
media from found footage, (photo) albums, collage, film, analog and digital photography.
Eva majored in Cultural Studies at the University of Amsterdam and has a Bachelor
Degree in Photographic Design at the Royal Academy for the Visual Arts in The Hague
(KABK). She was selected ‘Best of photography departments art academies Netherlands
2008’ by the Amsterdam Centre of Photography ‘. In 2010 she was nominated for the
Dutch Doc Award with her work ‚Famylje’ which was exhibited at the Noorderlicht
Photofestival 2010. Her work ‚Illumination I’ was part of the New Dutch Photography
Talent in 2012. Her recent work ‚Fernweh & Heimweh’ was shortlisted for the Athens
Photofestival 2015 and was featured ‘Editors Pick’ and ‘Conceptual Project’ at Lensculture.