About

Wijnanda Deroo does not limit herself to the known -- in fact, she seems to search out the unknown and unfamiliar.  Whether traveling within her native Holland or her adopted home, the United States, or exploring countries much farther afield -- Indonesia, China, Russia, Mexico -- Deroo does not shy away from taking this travel a step deeper.  Visiting the interiors of public buildings, homes, factories, hotels, she seems to be searching for the heart of the matter, the belly of the beast.  As Ken Johnson of the New York Times notes, Deroo's photographs have a curious searching quality... as though she were a detective.

But while she is clearly adept at navigating human society, unfailingly managing to gain access to the innermost chambers of people's personal and work spaces, and while she is clearly fascinated by and respectful of the people to whom these interiors belong, Deroo does not include them in her photographs.  Rather -- while she seems to be seeking an answer within the spaces these people have created, decorated, inhabited -- she insists on looking beyond or even through the people themselves.

Indeed, the absence of human presence in Deroo's photographs, points to a secret, to something hidden beyond what is visible, according to Rudy Koushbroek (Perspectief #30).

While Deroo's photographs can be of fairly quotidian spaces -- waiting rooms, courtyards, a kitchen -- the interplay she produces between her chosen subject matter and color, light and composition transforms each space into a thing of startling uniqueness.

Or, in the words of Abram de Swaan, these beautiful photographs become beautiful in another way, or something other than beautiful, something that is difficult to put into words, but that invites us to look again and again.

Born 1955 The Netherlands
Liberal Arts Degree from Academy of Fine Arts, Arnheim
Professor Academy of Fine Arts, Arnheim, 1981-1990
Professor Academy of Fine Arts, St. Joast, Breda 1985-1990
Lives and works in Amsterdam and New York