Born in Holland, Sarah Van Rij is a self-taught photographer with an incredible eye for detail. She first worked as a creative director in Amsterdam, where she was responsible for in-house photography but eventually leaving to concentrate solely on her work. She is now known for her street and narrative photography, which has attracted both fashion and editorial clients alike. Drawing influence from other artistic fields such as painting to cinema, Van Rij has developed a clear visual signature. Her unique framing, saturated colour and varied depth of field, sees her lifting the seemingly mundane and ordinary into something magical, telling entire stories within a single frame, often with only the faintest traces of human form. She currently lives between Amsterdam and Paris.
About the project
Working intuitively, and observing her chosen territory closely, self-taught photographer Sarah van Rij (b. 1990, the Netherlands) documents fleeting fragments of life on the street. Van Rij’s images convey a clear visual signature defined by a number of recurring elements, including careful framing; experiments with perspective; touches of vivid colour; and traces of human forms. Her work draws influences from various artistic fields – from painting to cinema – whilst building upon rich and longstanding photographic traditions for capturing the subtle beauty found in the everyday. Whilst van Rij’s images are inherently contemporary (a number of photographs are shot on the artist's iPhone), it is often difficult to place them in time: with the occasional exception, her subject matter is largely devoid of any temporal indicators, lending her work an ageless feeling and evoking nostalgia for times gone by.