Gaze Series - Marlene

Dutch photographer Desirée Dolron is known for creating images that occupy a space between photography and painting. Throughout her work, she explores beauty, stillness, ritual and altered states of consciousness, often transforming the human figure into something mysterious and almost otherworldly.

In her series Gaze (1996–1998), Dolron photographs her subjects underwater, using immersion to create a moment in which ordinary bodily awareness seems temporarily suspended. Surrounded by the soft, indistinct darkness of the water, faces and bodies appear to drift between movement and complete stillness.

The subjects' expressions reveal the quiet tension of holding their breath, while their bodies seem momentarily weightless and immobilized. Time itself appears slowed.

For Dolron, this temporary numbing of the senses becomes more than a physical experience. It suggests a way of moving beyond the body toward a heightened state of consciousness, a recurring idea in her work and one that can also be found in her Exaltation series.

Born in the Netherlands in 1963, Dolron has developed a highly distinctive photographic language over several decades. Her work moves between documentary photography and meticulously constructed imagery, yet remains connected by her fascination with the human condition, contemplation and transcendence. Her photographs are held in major international museum and private collections and have established her as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Dutch photography.

Title: Marlene - GAZE SERIES 1996 -1998
Print: Cibachrome Print
Dimensions: 122 x 122 cm | 48" x 48"
Frame: Black Walnut - Museum Glass
Edition: AP