This year at Paris Photo, the Hama Gallery presents the work of Dutch photographer Melissa Schriek. Her work, at the crossroads of gesture, narrative, and experimentation, is supported by a young and committed gallery that challenges traditional exhibition conventions.
Tokyo, 2024 – Melissa Schriek
From Amsterdam to Ibiza, Hama Gallery cultivates a sensitive and welcoming approach to contemporary art. Founded in 2020 by Nina Hama, the gallery has established itself in just a few years as a space for emerging artists, balancing accessibility, high curatorial standards, and a passion for collaboration. For its return to Paris Photo, the gallery is highlighting the powerful and unique work of Melissa Schriek, a rising star in performance photography.
Melissa Schriek's world is instantly recognizable. Sculpted bodies, suspended poses, urban settings, and soft lighting compose intriguing scenes, somewhere between silent choreography and intimate ritual. The photographer explores the connections between women, how they inhabit space and relate to one another. “I have always been inspired by the women in my life. I consider female friendship and solidarity to be something unique… It’s very difficult to explain, and that’s why I try to photograph them.” She says.
Born in the Netherlands, Melissa Schriek discovered her passion for photography at a very young age. Even as a child, she meticulously composed photographic scenes in the schoolyard, disposable camera in hand. But it was at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague that her practice took a more radical turn. There, she discovered the power of the body as a language and developed a marked interest in the ambiguity between fiction and reality.
Girls Waiting For The Bus, 2024 – Melissa Schriek
Since her graduation project, Schriek has photographed bodies in tension within public spaces. Her models, often female, are chosen for their ability to push the boundaries of posture and physical expression. Drawing on her years of dance and gymnastics, she creates images where movement becomes sculpture. Each scene is meticulously composed, yet retains a certain spontaneity, as if the bodies had been frozen in a pivotal moment.
What is striking about the works exhibited at Paris Photo is the balance between strangeness and familiarity. While we recognize the streets, staircases, or lampposts, the bodies in the images seem inhabited by something unusual, a certain memory or emotion, a secret. The gestures are never gratuitous. They convey anticipation, friendship, complicity, sometimes boredom or solitude. Schriek seeks less to capture a moment than to suggest a narrative: “Human stories are at the heart of my work. Even if my images appear dreamlike, they must always remain plausible.”
Experimentation remains the driving force behind the photographer's approach. She often juggles several projects simultaneously, abandoning those that no longer inspire her, and embracing both failure and surprise. She readily cites Viviane Sassen and Paul Kooiker among her influences, but also draws inspiration from everyday life, from the way people move, dress, or walk. A crumpled piece of fabric, an object left on a sidewalk can be enough to spark an idea.
With this exhibition, Hama Gallery confirms its talent for showcasing artists with a distinctive aesthetic. Led by Nina Hama, the gallery champions an open vision of contemporary art, where exchange takes precedence over prestige. Since its opening in Amsterdam, the space has continually evolved, hosting exhibition openings, discussions, outdoor events, and now a café in Ibiza, conceived as a vibrant artistic hub in its own right.
At Paris Photo, two energies converge: that of a photographer who sculpts the world through gesture, and that of a gallery that makes art a space for human exchange. A duo to watch closely, here and now.
Melissa Schriek with the Hama Gallery at Paris Photo
Grand Palais
3, avenue du Général-Eisenhower, Paris 8e
From 13/16 to 2025/XNUMX
One Woman Show, 2024 – Melissa Schriek
