Galerie Michèle Schoonjans : Danielle Kwaaitaal : Still Water

Florilegium P52 © Danielle Kwaaitaal -Courtesy Galerie Michèle Schoonjans

Photographer Danielle Kwaaitaal (b. 1964 in Bussum near Amsterdam) graduated successively from the Bijenveld Fashion Academy in Amsterdam (1987) and from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam (1991). During her studies she discovered the possibilities of digital editing when she was allowed to work with the very expensive Paintbox during an internship. This was a powerful graphics workstation developed in 1981 for editing television video and graphics, with an initial price tag of around €600,000 (in today’s terms). Needless to say, Photoshop (which was only first commercialised about 1990) was not really a competitor at the time. Kwaaitaal was a pioneer, and her graduation project Bodyscapes was awarded and purchased by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Sensuality is the second constant in Danielle Kwaaitaal’s work, or should we say sensuality and the femininity? In Bodyscapes eg, she created landscapes by assembling images of her own skin. Soon she adds the third constant, water: in Bubbling from 1994, she submerges bodies under water, and photographs details with the air bubbles.

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