Genius Loci - Kathryn Hillier

Hillier prefers places where nature and culture touch on each other and where, moreover, a certain transience is visible. The shots in museums of natural history are typical, where she photographs the various rooms, displays and dioramas with her 6 x 6 camera. Her interest here is not in simple documentation, but rather in the small, apparently insignificant details and the atmospheric effects of reflected light and subdued incidental light. She zooms in on old-fashioned furniture and display cases, timeworn and threadbare materials, and ugly or forgotten corners. Hillier is able to create beauty even from the dust that she finds in such places. Her photographs are permeated with the rarefied, melancholy atmosphere that seems characteristic of the places she photographs. Kathryn Hillier (b. 1979, Sacramento) lives and works in New York. She graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2003. She has previously shown at Galerie Chaume in Paris and at the Festival International de Mode et de Photographie in Hyères, France, where she took first prize for photography. Her work is now being seen in The Netherlands for the first time.

Katryn Hillier | Fly traps