About
Vera van Almen (born 1986, the Netherlands) is a visual artist based in ’s-Hertogenbosch. She graduated from the Photo Academy in Amsterdam in 2017.

Her practice has evolved from camera-based photography towards an entirely camera-less approach. Working with analogue photographic processes, she uses light-sensitive materials to create unique images shaped by light, material, time and chance. This slow and physical way of working has become central to her practice.

Artist statement
I create camera-less images in which light, material and time come together to shape the work. Through analogue processes, I explore how experiences that resist definition can temporarily take form.

My images often suggest landscapes, not as depictions of existing places, but as spaces that emerge through perception. With minimal visual elements, I evoke a sense of recognition without fully defining what is seen. The works remain open, inviting the viewer to complete what is not fully given.

Moving between presence and absence, memory and imagination, the visible and the unseen, my work creates a quiet space where perception slows and subtle associations, emotions and forms of longing can emerge.


Longing
for a place
you have never been

Longing
for a time
you do not know

Coming home
to a place
you have never been

Feeling akin
to someone
you do not know

Losing
an other me

Feeling nothing
is that feeling something?

I did not know
that nothing
can be everything


Text by Vera van Almen