The Diocesan Museum of Genoa and the Fondazione San Lorenzo, a social enterprise, in collaboration with VisionQuesT 4rosso present the photographic exhibition by the Dutch artist Danielle Van Zadelhoff
The exhibition, entitled TIMELESS PORTRAITS BETWEEN FLEMISH RIGOUR AND CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY is curated by Clelia Belgrado and Paola Martini, emphasizes the timeless dimension of these photographic images, in which light and its absence play a fundamental role. It is precisely the management of these two fundamental conditions that connects these contemporary portraits to the refined works of 17th-century Flemish painters. The extraordinary effects created by the use of light and the “management” of chiaroscuro, a defining element of Flemish painting, are here reproduced in extraordinarily contemporary, almost timeless images. It is no coincidence that the initiative was chosen to be presented on the occasion of the important exhibition dedicated to Anton Van Dyck entitled Van Dyck The European (Palazzo Ducale, from 20 March to 19 July 2026).
Danielle van Zadelhoff was born in 1963 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; she lives and works in Eeklo, Belgium. Raised in a family deeply interested in art, with a father who was also a painter and sculptor, photography entered her life through the photographer Leopold Beels van Heemstede. Inspired by life’s great themes, her images seek to capture almost imperceptible yet ever-present elements. Religious themes are very evident in some of her works; she states, “I grew up in a Protestant school with a Catholic grandmother and a humanist father.”
She has had numerous group and solo exhibitions, and participated in international fairs such as Paris Photo and Photo London. Her works are included in the collections of various museums, including the Musea Brugge in Belgium, CAC Malaga in Spain, MIT Boston in the USA, Reith Hoffman in the USA, Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, Stads Museum Harderwijk, Museul National de ARTA in Bucharest, and 212 Photography in Istanbul.
Her works display a rigorous compositional approach and scrupulous attention to detail,combined with a particularly meticulous study of light. The various portraits, in which some models are dressed to recall figures from Flemish paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries, are also universal and symbolic testimonies to the feelings and states of mind inherent in our lives: loneliness, vulnerability, the pure and raw emotions of everyday life. Each portrait is striking for its emotional intensity and the contemporaneity of the faces, enriched by those small details and marks, such as bruises, and tattoos on the skin that the artist leaves as traces of our imperfect daily lives.
The exhibition will unfold in the new temporary exhibition rooms of the museum and partly within the traditional layout, creating a dialogue, where possible, between the photographs and the works from the collection. It will be open to the public during museum hours (www.museodiocesanogenova.it) and can be visited by purchasing an admission ticket (€8, €6 for concessions and associations).
During the exhibition dedicated to Van Dyck the European, a reciprocal discount on the admission ticket has been activated for those who present an entry ticket for one of the two exhibitions.