Between Seeing and Saying I Marc Nagtzaam & Marike Schuurman

Bradwolff & Partners warmly welcomes you to "Between Seeing and Saying", in which two ways of looking converge: the quiet systematicity of Marc Nagtzaam alongside the inquiring gaze of Marike Schuurman. Pencil and camera. Two different mediums, one question: how do images acquire meaning, and what remains outside the frame?

Marc Nagtzaam creates drawings in which reduction and excess meet in a precarious balance. Grids, patterns, and fragments of language emerge intuitively and are redrawn layer upon layer until a structure or composition presents itself. In this way, a series of lines can give rise to an almost architectural pattern that appears both rigorous and personal. The work bears witness to concentrated labour: traces in the margins, repetition, nuance, slight shifts. Those who look closely discern the hand of the maker in minute variations, such as a line that thickens slightly or a corner that just falls short of closing. Within this working method, Nagtzaam continually seeks a confrontation with opposites—order and chance, abstraction and gesture—which sometimes cancel each other out and at other times reinforce one another. The result is a space that continually reconfigures itself yet never closes: a rhythm without a definite end, akin to a visual train of thought.

Marike Schuurman uses photography to examine the often absurd relationship between humans and their environment. She interrogates the ambiguity of human-made spaces and landscapes, where boundaries are constantly shifting. What seems natural at first glance often turns out to be meticulously constructed; what appears orderly reveals itself upon closer inspection to be chaotic.
Her photographs explore not only what is visible, but also what eludes the eye, thereby questioning the boundaries of perception, imagination, and representation. Schuurman experiments with specific photographic techniques, inspired and influenced by her subjects, making the spatial experience and context of each location tangible and endowing familiar situations with an unexpected charge.

Together, Nagtzaam and Schuu