By Yasmijn Jarram

Lonneke van der Palen’s vivid photographs bear witness to her almost mathematical sense of colour and design. They often reflect still-life or a portrait showing a single figure. The images tease your imagination, and leave you guessing what it is you are actually seeing and what its underlying importance is. In fact, a single image actually tells an entire narrative.

Van de Palen plays with people’s experience: recognisable elements and visual clichés are combined in such a way that onlookers are continually thrown off balance. The representation of an everyday object that is central to a photo is often so aesthetical – almost theatrical – that it summons up entirely contrasting associations and meanings.

Lonneke van der Palen at the opening of On the Edge

Lonneke van der Palen at the opening of On the Edge