EXHIBITIONS \  Juul Kraijer

The Wapping Project Bankside is delighted to take on Dutch artist Juul Kraijer. The programme in our new location commences with her first solo exhibition in the UK.

In a career spanning over twenty years, Juul Kraijer’s meticulous, exploratory methods have yielded an oeuvre of over four hundred drawings, as well as sculpture and video. Influenced by her interest in manipulating reality, she has shifted her practice largely from drawing to photography, fascinated by the challenge of subverting the tropes of portraiture and working around the traditional limitations of the genre. Kraijer’s practice draws upon Surrealist photography, using models as vehicles for ideas rather than portraits. In particular, the portraits in which she incorporates snakes and other creatures serve to displace the model and subvert the traditional hierarchies between human and animal, model and accessory. In a situation that would normally arouse anxiety, the model preserves a stillness and grace reminiscent of Renaissance portraiture, further evoking a sense of an otherworldly, dream-like space through real encounters that border on the surreal. Moreover, the stark images resist any specific time or context, conveying a sense of the eternal.

“In September 2013, I discovered Juul Kraijer’s work at an exhibition in Amsterdam’s exquisite photography gallery, the 18th century Huis Marseille. Two months later I staged a contemporary photography exhibition in London’s equally beautiful 18th century building, Ely House. I saw instantly that Juul’s unsettling work would sit perfectly within this building.”