Ingrid Baars is fascinated by early photographic portraits. To her, the sitters appear distant yet genuine. Compared with the carefully managed self-presentation familiar from social media today, their faces seem less performed, revealing a vulnerability that makes them deeply human.

In Painterly Portraits, she brings together antique imagery and contemporary photography. Each portrait is built from photographic fragments, layered with an almost watercolour-like translucency. Lace, satin and flowers merge into soft passages. Forms dissolve into one another; parts of a face or a garment remain indistinct. Sharp details and hard light interrupt this softness. In Ginger, a pronounced shadow across the nose interrupts the haziness of the face. The portraits are poetic and melancholic, but never fragile.