Onbekende mensen in een roeiboot en op een uitkijktoren 1912

This is a page of an album by Carolina (Loentje) Frederika Onnen, with two photographs pasted onto it. It’s a double exposure kind of a piece. The sepia tones give it a dreamy, old-timey feel, like looking through a dusty attic window. On top, we have a boat on a lake, and below, two figures on a tower. It’s all about seeing, looking, observing. It's like Onnen is pondering the act of witnessing, who gets to look, and from what vantage point. The way Onnen overlaps these images suggests a sense of time folding in on itself. Maybe it speaks to the multiple layers of experience, how the past and present are always intertwined. The textures are subtle; the grain of the photographs, the slight imperfections in the paper. It reminds me a little of Gerhard Richter's blurred photographs, how he used abstraction to question the nature of representation. Both artists invite us to consider the elusiveness of images, how they can hint at a truth without ever fully revealing it.