Ode to Céline van BalenBetween beautiful and repulsive
“Was she looking into the girls' souls? Or were the girls looking into hers?”
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In 1991, Céline van Balen participates in the photography course for the unemployed. She was then 26 years old. She is immediately passionate and took several courses until 1994. In 1995, she takes the evening course at the Rietveld Academy.
Céline mainly makes portraits. She photographs the vulnerable in society: addicts, the elderly impoverished and lonely, women with anorexia, girls with headscarves, 7-year-old children, squatters and people from the street.
Her characteristic style is that she neither frames her portraits nor provides them with a passe-partout, but shows the edges of the negative. Seeking the boundary between beautiful and repulsive, that was her point.
In 1999, Céline photographs for Document Netherlands, the Rijksmuseum's annual photo assignment. In 2001, she chose Project Berlin to take portrait photographs of anonymous street dwellers of Eastern European immigrants. In 2001 she has an exhibition in New York. In 2002 an exhibition in Haarlem including a book with a foreword by Remco Campert. In 2003 she receives the Kees Scherer Prize.
Céline's work has also been shown several times at the Huis Marseille photo museum in Amsterdam. A friend was lucky enough to be there for a moment alone in the room where the larger-than-life portraits of the girls wearing headscarves hung. She experienced a magical moment in which the question was: was she looking into the girls' souls? Or were the girls looking into hers? It was a feeling of powerful connection.
In 2004, Céline suddenly quit photography, she was 39 and at the peak of her career. She no longer feels like doing it. It's too much for her.
Her work also hangs in Cleveland, San Francisco and at Forum Madrid Arco.
Her oeuvre has been transferred to the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam.
On April 1, 2023, Céline died at the age of 58.
Sources
https://www.groene.nl/artikel/niet-lachen-op-de-foto
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/07/26/fotograaf-celine-van-balen-liet-mensen-in-hun-waarde
https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/celine-van-balen-1965-2023-fotografeerde-de-kwetsbaren-in-de-samenleving
About
Ode van De Zaak Muurbloem, Maria Dubbeldam aan Celine van Balen.
Celine fotografeerde mensen van de straat op een bijzondere wijze. Haar afdrukken waren zeer groot en niet ingekaderd, Zij mag niet vergeten worden en haar foto's moeten zichtbaar blijven voor het publiek.
Céline van Balen
Céline photographed people from the street in a special way. Her prints were very large and unframed, She should not be forgotten and her photos should remain visible to the public.