Mariken Wessels (1963, Vlaardingen) is renowned for her peculiar – now internationally acclaimed – photobooks. Her books use photographs from various personal archives as a starting point, offering a simultaneously fantastic and disturbing view of the main characters. Is it fiction or are they ego-documents? Where can the hand of the artist be seen? Which piece is actually authentic? Wessels likes to leave open which parts are from the artist and which are not.
Her books linger in the mind for days after ‘reading’. The enigmatic collages of old black and white family photos, edited portrait photos, edited contact prints, stills from Kodak 8mm films, and photos of photos. Each book is a disturbing, multi-layered, and gripping story in which Wessels is the virtuoso narrator.
www.ftn-books.com has several Wessels publications now available.
