Joris Graaf Dutch

With a passion for studying rocks and fossils, Joris Graaf began his career as a geologist. He spent years reading the layers of the earth - the slow time of stone. But underneath it all, something else began to surface: a longing for emotion, color, stillness. A desire not to analyze, but to feel.

He turned to the camera first - driven, ambitious, determined to become one of the best emerging photographers of his time. And he succeeded. But once it became clear that he could photograph, the real challenge began: allowing himself to let go of what was expected and explore what truly moved him. That shift - from photographer to visual artist - wasn't easy. It was a process of undoing, rebuilding, and listening inward.

His work now lives somewhere between photography, collage, and digital construction. He works with double exposures, layers of material, and the physical act of image-making. He cuts, rearranges, erases, rebuilds - sometimes literally, by slicing up his own prints. His process is intuitive and raw, guided more by feeling than by form.

Joris often compares it to composing music: rhythm, contrast, repetition. Music isn't background for Joris - it's part of the structure, part of the image. His works don't try to explain. They exist. They pull you in or leave you cold. Either way, they leave a mark.

Joris Graaf lives and works near The Hague, but his images reach far beyond - shaped by impressions from Asia, by memory, silence, and noise. Though his work is internationally recognized in the field of abstract photography, Joris doesn't see himself as a photographer. He builds images rather than captures them.His work isn't meant to be understood - it's meant to be felt. And sometimes: to disappear into.