Katrien De Blauwer, Old sweater gets new uses (119), 2024
Whatever you do, don’t tell Katrien De Blauwer that she makes collages: “Let’s just say I’m a photographer without a camera. The cutting is, for me, comparable to the shutter click of a camera.” She cuts, pastes, assembles, breaks the rules, colors, and manipulates photographs taken from old magazines that she collects.
— Philippe Azoury
Katrien De Blauwer was born in 1969 in Ronse, Belgium. After studying painting in Ghent, she joined the Royal Academy in Antwerp to pursue fashion studies.
She collects, cuts, and reassembles visual fragments from old magazines to create narrative compositions where memory, desire, and ambivalence intersect. Her practice, akin to cinematic editing, explores the relationship between image and viewer through evocative visual stories. By appropriating anonymous photographs, integrating them into her inner universe, and offering viewers a form of self-recognition, she gives her narratives a universal resonance. Her work oscillates between intimacy and the anonymity of found images.
Her works are included in prestigious collections such as The Morgan Library & Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Bank of Belgium. Solo exhibitions have been devoted to her work at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2022, the Institut pour la Photographie in Lille in 2023, and the Princeton University Art Museum in the United States in 2024.