Biography
Sabrina (1986, The Netherlands) is a photographer and multidisciplinary artist. Her black-and-white photographs are shaped by a cinematic visual language in which light becomes a central expressive element. Each work begins as a drawing, through which she develops the composition before translating it into photography. Her images explore the tension between vulnerability and desire, intimacy and distance, in a language that is both poetic and precise.
She graduated from the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague. Early in her career, she developed a distinctive body of work in which fashion, music, and portraiture converged. This work gained international recognition through two consecutive participations in the New York Photo Festival and found its way into international exhibitions and art fairs, where her photography was presented in diverse cultural contexts.
Rather than treating fashion as image alone, she approached it as a language of transformation and self-expression. The poetry of Arthur Rimbaud—particularly his notion of Je est un autre (“I is another”)—became a lasting source of inspiration, informing the emotional and philosophical undercurrents of her work. This influence continues to resonate in photographs that combine carefully composed light, melancholy, vulnerability, and existential depth.
In 2017, she was appointed Artist in Residence at the Interuniversity Institute for Art History in Florence, where she conducted research into Renaissance drawing, anatomy, and the representation of the body in painting under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Michael Kwakkelstein. This period culminated in Corpus Dei, a photographic series developed across Florence, Rome, and Villa Adriana in Tivoli, drawing on the artistic legacies of Michelangelo and Caravaggio. The series was presented in Florence, exhibited internationally, and featured in multiple publications.
Corpus Dei was published as a bibliophile photobook by Lecturis, featuring a foreword by Michael W. Kwakkelstein and an essay by Sarah de Clercq. The book was launched at Sotheby’s Amsterdam during Amsterdam Art Week, accompanied by an exhibition of the series at the auction house. The series was later presented at the Ikonenmuseum, where the photographs entered into dialogue with historical icons. Her work received an Honourable Mention from Fotomuseum Den Haag as part of the museum’s photography prize. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally, including two consecutive participations at the New York Photo Festival, as well as exhibitions in Florence and Amsterdam.
Her long-term photographic projects explore transformation, becoming, and the fragile dimensions of human presence within contemporary culture. Her work unfolds through carefully constructed photographic narratives in which light, gesture, and composition become carriers of emotional experience. Within this artistic trajectory, Rahim Redcar unfolds as an extensive photographic exploration of a singular presence within contemporary music. Sabrina follows Redcar through shifting states of vulnerability, ecstasy, fragility, and reinvention, approaching the self not as a fixed condition, but as an evolving process. Visually, the work balances a mysterious, theatrical aesthetic with still, sculptural black-and-white portraiture. Through this interplay between movement and stillness, she investigates the tension between public appearance and inner experience, where the body becomes a carrier of memory, longing, and transformation. Beneath the performative surface, the series reveals a profound exploration of vulnerability, longing, and the complexities of human presence.
Alongside her autonomous practice, she has created portraits of leading figures in contemporary music and culture. Her subjects include British musician and poet Peter Doherty, whose portrait was featured in the exhibition How Soon is Now? and published in GUP Magazine, as well as the avant-garde sister duo CocoRosie. More recently, she has collaborated with Italian musician and composer Giancarlo Prandelli. These portraits reflect her enduring fascination with music, performance, and the expressive possibilities of artistic identity.
She is currently developing Contritio Cordis (Latin for “the crushing of the heart”), a major photographic project that originated through several photographic visits to the former psychiatric hospital of Volterra (Manicomio di Volterra), Italy. This substantial body of work explores memory, vulnerability, and the fragile dimensions of human existence through a carefully constructed visual language. Developed through sustained research, the project brings together photography, existential philosophy, and the history of place.
The photographic series unfolds further in Intra Cordis (“within the heart”), her first installation, extending the images into an immersive experience of image, sound, and light. The work explores the existential dimensions of human experience, where the personal becomes a passage towards the universal. In parallel, she is developing LENS, a public programme of workshops, lectures, and encounters exploring personal experience, reflection, and collective understanding through art.