Scarlett Hooft Graafland creates magical photographic images in far-flung places, including the high-altitude salt flats in Bolivia, remote farm sheds in Iceland, the beaches of Yemen, Madagascar, the polar region and the Dutch village of Gorinchem. Her work touches upon major themes such as the disappearance of traditional cultures and the fragility of nature, yet the tone is always light, colourful and surreal.
Scarlett Hooft Graafland turns these austere surroundings into live actors in the highly choreographed performances that she stages there. Weeks of preparation, in which she works closely with inhabitants, culminate in a scene where local social issues take centre stage and the vast surreal landscape becomes the chorus of a calssical tragicomedy that silently comments on the subject. Without the use of any digital manipulation, using only her analogue camera and the natural light that reveals itself during the enactment, the artist truthfully captures the joyful drama in the open scenery.
Scarlett Hooft Graafland received a BFA at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, the Netherlands and a MFA in sculpture at Parsons School of Design, New York. Initially, Scarlett Hooft Graafland mainly took photographs to document her sculptures and performances, but gradually, her photographs became works of art in their own right.
Selected Solo-Exhibitions:
2016 'Shores Like You', Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2015 'Look Cook Look!', Landskrona Museum, Landskrona, Sweden
2014 'Unlikely Landscape', Museum of Photography, Seoul, South Korea
2013 'Angèle', Brummelkamp Gallery, AMC Hospital, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
'Suaves Horizontes', MAC - Museo de Arte Contemporáno, Lima, Peru
2012 'Almas de Sal', Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz, Bolivia
'Domestic Marble', Piet Hein Eek Gallery, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
2011 'Soft Horizons', Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2010 'Front/Reverse', duo show with Hu Zi, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, China
2009 'My White Night', Michael Hoppen Contemporary Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2005 'Salt Works', De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2004 'Reyj´kjavik Roofs', SIM Gallery, Reykjavik, Iceland
2000 'Part Time Human', Anadiel Gallery, Center for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem
Her work is in art collections such as the Museum of Photography, Seoul; Huis Marseille Museum of Photography, Amsterdam; Landskrona Museum, Sweden; Contemporary Art Museum – Palestine (CAMP), Jerusalem; AMC Hospital, Amsterdam; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; USB, Zurich; Miramax, New York and Statoil, Norway.
Scarlett Hooft Graafland "Shores Like You", Rotterdam 2016