HARRIE NOUWEN
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Artist statement
Artist statement
As a self-taught visual artist, I have been experimenting with photography since I was sixteen, drawn not to technique for its own sake but to the possibility of revealing something honest about what it means to be human. I work with analogue photography and with materials that remain close to the earth: wood, stone, plaster, found objects, and sometimes rain or wind themselves. These elements carry their own histories, weathering, and resilience. They help me approach the world not as a spectacle but as something primal, yet fragile and intimate.
My images are not constructed to impress; they are attempts to connect to a world not driven by prosperity or progress. I look for places, textures, and moments where the surface becomes a threshold, where something quiet, tender, or uneasy in our shared human nature becomes visible. These often overlooked details mirror the parts of ourselves we often deny: our fragility, our longing, our loneliness, and in this also our strength. Photography, for me, is a way of acknowledging these truths without judgment.
I believe the true challenge we face today is not how to preserve our prosperity in the midst of the climate or migration crises, nor how intelligent our machines can become, but how can we remain human: How do we allow ourselves to acknowledge our vulnerability instead of denying it?
In eve, rything I make, I try to remain close to what is real — not the polished version of ourselves we present to the world, but the subtle, imperfect, vulnerable core beneath it. That is where I believe our humanity lives.
Harrie Nouwen (1958)
CV
1976 – heden Beeldend kunstenaar
1977 – 1979 Assistent fotograaf Van Abbemuseum
1975 – 1979 Fotograaf Groot Eindhoven
1979 Atelierassistent Anselm Kiefer
EXPOSITIES
2025 Nimmerama, Solo
2025 Het Kerkje van Persingen
2024 Het Kerkje van Persingen
2012 De Punt, Amsterdam
2007 Etalage Parkwolf Nijmegen
1993 Lokaal 01: Deelname "Leerschool der Photografie"
1984 Publicatie Trotwaer, literer tydskrift
1982 Etalage Zuidergrachtswal Leeuwarden
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Harrie Nouwen (1958, Nijmegen) is a self thought artist that has experimented with photography from his 16th and has developed a large body of work that has been occasionally exhibited.
Nouwen uses analogue photography and earthy materials to explore the fragile, often overlooked layers of our human nature. He photographs places or moments in which something quiet, vulnerable or unsettled becomes visible. His work resists spectacle and notions of progress, instead seeking the subtle truths of our vulnerability and connectedness as a way to stay close to what is real and fundamentally human.
His work aims to lead us toward acknowledging our vulnerability instead of denying it. He believes the true challenge we face today is not how to preserve our prosperity in the midst of the climate or migration crises, nor how intelligent our machines can become, but how can we remain human?
His residency with Anselm Kiefer in 1979 profoundly influenced Harrie Nouwen’s way of working. Although very different in scale, Harrie Nouwen’s work shares with Anselm Kiefer a deep preoccupation with human vulnerability. In both practices, beauty arises precisely from what is broken, weathered or primordial, and from the recognition that survival and fragility are inseparable. Where Kiefer confronts history and collective memory, Nouwen turns toward the intimate, the overlooked, and moments that reveal how we shield ourselves from vulnerability.
Artists that Nouwen feels kinship with or is inspired by are Yasmina Benabderrahmane for her use of analogue processes and her deep sensitivity to the fragile.The work of Rebecca Horn for the poetic use of materials and its contemplative sense of weathering and decay. The work of David Claerbout for it’s non-spectacular nature and the way he slows down and question our perception. And more obvious Meatyard, Fieret and Mikhailov
Harrie Nouwen has always maintained a professional artistic practice, yet out of uncertainty he kept his work largely out of public view. As the urgent questions of the 21st century continue to intensify and with them a growing sense of fear, he feels an increasing responsibility to let his voice be heard through his work. He is currently dedicating himself to making a substantial part of his oeuvre ready for presentation, shaping years of quiet production into a coherent public body.
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