Biography

Self-portrait with my Afghan hounds, Bashir and Tiziano

Sabrina (1986, The Netherlands) is a photographer and multidisciplinary artist whose practice arises from a cinematic visual language in which light, shadow, and composition determine the emotional and existential character of her images. Each work begins as a drawing, through which she explores composition, pose, space, and the relationship between light and the human form before translating these studies into photography. Her work examines the human body as a carrier of memory, vulnerability, and transformation. Through sculptural compositions and a carefully considered visual language, her photographs explore the tension between vulnerability and desire, intimacy and distance, absence and connection. Light functions not merely as a visual element, but as an expressive and sculptural force that shapes the emotional depth of the image.

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. Rather than treating fashion as image alone, she approached it as a language of self-expression and transformation. The poetry of Arthur Rimbaud — particularly his notion of Je est un autre (“I is another”) — became a lasting source of inspiration, shaping the philosophical and emotional foundations of her practice. This influence continues to resonate throughout her work, where carefully composed light, melancholy, and existential reflection come together in quietly powerful images.

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 W. Kwakkelstein. This period led to the development of Corpus Dei, a photographic series conceived and created across Florence, Rome, and Villa Adriana in Tivoli, drawing on the artistic legacies of Michelangelo and Caravaggio.

Corpus Dei was published as a bibliophile photobook by Lecturis, featuring a foreword by Prof. Dr. Michael W. Kwakkelstein and an essay by Edwin Becker, Head of Exhibitions at the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam. The publication also includes a concluding afterword by Sarah de Clercq, Director of Sotheby’s Amsterdam.

The book was launched at Sotheby’s Amsterdam during Amsterdam Art Week, accompanied by an exhibition of the series. The work was subsequently exhibited in Florence and later presented in its entirety at the Ikonenmuseum, where the complete series entered into dialogue with historical icons across six exhibition spaces. The project received international recognition and was featured in various Italian and international art and cultural publications.

Beyond Corpus Dei, her photographic practice has been presented internationally through two consecutive participations in the New York Photo Festival and exhibitions and art fairs across Europe, including PAN Amsterdam and PhotoFever Brussels. A significant milestone was the publication of her work in Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s leading newspapers, alongside features in international cultural publications. Her practice was further acknowledged through an Honourable Mention from Fotomuseum Den Haag as part of the museum’s photography prize.

Alongside her broader artistic practice, Sabrina develops portrait series with artists from the contemporary music and cultural scene. Her subjects include British musician and poet Peter Doherty, presented during her solo exhibition How Soon is Now? in Amsterdam and later published in GUP Magazine; the American avant-garde duo CocoRosie (Bianca and Sierra Casady); Italian musician and composer Giancarlo Prandelli; and French singer, songwriter, performer and multidisciplinary artist Rahim Redcar (Christine and the Queens). Her portrait practice with Rahim Redcar extends beyond individual sessions into an ongoing artistic inquiry, exploring the development of identity, embodiment and artistic expression over time.

Sabrina is currently developing Contritio Cordis, a multidisciplinary artistic research project that emerged from an extensive photographic series created in the former psychiatric hospital in Volterra, Italy, known as the Manicomio di Volterra. The photographs form the foundation of an ongoing exploration into human presence, dignity, and the existential rupture that can occur when the connection with the other and the world is broken — when a person loses a sense of belonging, recognition, and connection with the world. Created within a place marked by traces of absence, memory, and lived experience, the work reflects on what remains when a human being risks becoming unseen.

Contritio Cordis is supported by Stichting Psychiatrie en Filosofie, which remains involved throughout the development of the project. Through ongoing conversations and exchanges with philosophers, psychiatrists, and people with experiential knowledge, the project develops within a broader dialogue between artistic practice, philosophy, psychiatry, and lived experience. This exchange reflects the interdisciplinary nature of Contritio Cordis and its exploration of human presence, exclusion, dignity, and the conditions through which a person can remain seen, recognized, and truly encountered.

At the heart of Contritio Cordis lies an attentiveness to the individual: the human being who cannot be reduced to a system, a diagnosis, or a history, but appears as a singular presence. Within this project, Sabrina explores through photography the fragile space between visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, distance and connection.

Her images do not seek to explain or define the other, but to open a space in which the human being can appear as human. Through light, composition, and the presence of the photographed individual, photography becomes an act of attention — a way of looking in which encounter, rather than interpretation, becomes central.

At its core, Contritio Cordis asks a fundamental question: what happens to the human being when the connection with the other and the world is broken — when one loses a sense of belonging, recognition, and dignity — and what becomes possible when one is truly seen?