Eieren © Krista van der Niet — *Eieren* © Krista van der Niet

Interview conducted by Lana Nauphal

Krista van der Niet is a photographer and professor based in the Netherlands. Her photography focuses predominantly on still life, an age-old genre which she infuses with an intriguing sense of playfulness and modernity. Her artistic style is sharp and pleasing to the eye, as she achieves an almost mathematical sense of equilibrium even in her busiest images. She combines everyday objects in a fascinating way and elevates them to the realm of art, oftentimes to critique media clichés— and sometimes just to make us laugh. I had the pleasure of speaking with her about her artistic process, her views on still life photography, and her deliberate approach to commissioned works.

Musée Magazine: Let’s start by discussing your beginnings in photography. How did you first come to pick up a camera?

Krista van der Niet: I was this child that was always fiddling and drawing; I think I knew I wanted to do something creative, to work with my hands. And then I went to [the Gerrit Rietvield Academy]—before that I really never touched a camera.

It was quite an autonomous art academy, very free, where you could combine mixed media a lot. For me, I couldn't decide to choose just one medium and I thought it was super hard to do photography. I thought it was very technical and complex. But by practicing, I realized, “Oh, this is super simple for me. I can do this.” I was interested in technique, and I learned the analog way: four by five inch, the film, the darkroom. At some point, when you handle this technique, I just really loved to do it.

From there, how did you come to develop your very particular artistic style?

From the moment I did photography, I really liked the staging of things. We had to do assignments at the Art Academy, like go outside, documentary stuff, and I had no clue what to photograph when I was outside, just observing. It was never my thing. Already then, I was very often in the studio. And there you can build a whole set—a lot of things come together like crafting, fiddling, creating— and by the end of the day you press your camera. I loved the process.

I like to make aesthetic images of course—that, I cannot help doing, to make things really clean and aesthetic. But when it's only about aesthetics, it's also a bit boring. I want an undertone of something that is off. I also like a sense of humor in an image, that you can also laugh about it.

Like in “Eieren,” it’s so satisfying and pleasing, but then there is that underlying, off-putting sense—it makes me want to clean the eggs off the napkin. Your work is very vibrant; I know it’s cliché to say this— but you make still life feel very alive. What attracts you to still life as a genre?

A still life—maybe it’s boring and old fashioned, but I really like to give it a twist, to make it still appealing today. To look at plain objects that we all know, but suddenly, you're highlighting them, and you really appreciate the beauty in super simple things.

I like this endless play, or searching, for things to fall into place. You can really work with colors, materials, textures, tactility; you can also play with lights very much, to really create moods and enhance colors or textures.

[When the pandemic started], making still life was perfect. I was not dependent on working in teams or doing shoots with models, so that was ideal. I saw some photographers, colleagues on Instagram that I follow. When we got to complete lockdown, they were saying, "so now what to do?” And some of them started saying “okay, then I'm going to do still life.” What else can you do? [laughs] Everybody was trying still art because you can do it at home.

You make your still life objects interact in such interesting, unexpected ways. How do you select your items, and how do you choose which ones to combine together?

Although I am quite minimalist, and I’m not a hoarder or anything, I do like to go to thrift stores and craft stores and collect stuff that I think is interesting, and I always think to myself, “I could use it one day for a photograph.” I like old stuff or secondhand stuff. I also like to buy stuff from the market because the shapes [of fruits and vegetables] are always more awkward than in the supermarket; in the supermarket, everything is the same.

I also like to combine things that are natural with unnatural stuff. Like all the fruits you see so often wrapped in plastic medium. Just making strange combinations that you don't expect.

Abricots © Krista van der Niet — *Abricots* © Krista van der Niet

What inspires you and your work?

Even though my end product is photography, I really like to look at a lot of things. I get very much inspired by drawing, by videos or sculptures—mixed media stuff. I also get inspiration from high culture and low culture, from sort of kitsch, camp stuff to art. I think both can be very interesting. And I can even get inspired by things on TV that maybe you feel embarrassed about—and then the next day, you can go to the museum.

You also frequently take on commissions by clients such as Volkskrant Magazine, Het Parool, and Ecover, and yet even your commissioned works boast of your same artistic eye. How do you approach these commissioned works versus your autonomous works?

I like doing commissions in your own way, and not adapting to your client to do all kinds of things and all kinds of styles, but to be very specific. If you really go for one thing, they will come to you for that specific thing.

When I have a commission, there's already a topic and I have to come up with an image. Sometimes with big commercial stuff, you really have to sketch it out in advance, and that's just not the work that makes me very happy in the end. When it's more autonomous work, I just start making them, not knowing too much what it’s about; I don't want to analyze it too much. The outcome is never literally what I have in my mind— there always happens something in the process that I didn't foresee.

A lot of your images have political undertones, particularly in relation to gender expectations. Is that an intentional decision on your part?

I definitely like topics that are about the clichés that you find so often in the media: this is male; this is female. What you see so often in magazines, especially in the fashion scene or in the really high commercial—it’s so, in a way, not refreshing. They annoy me, but I think things that annoy you can be very inspiring. Things that even make you a little bit mad can really fuel you to make something to say the opposite.

“Zen,” for example, was about saying that domestic stuff can also be—not to everybody— very meditative; that in a way, it’s pleasant to do the ironing, or to clean the windows. I actually had a completely different idea for that image, but I liked the discovery that the shirt went like this. You search for something, and then you end up somewhere else, but it makes me much happier.

You can see more of Krista van der Niet's work on her website and on her Instagram.