Artist: Bart Koetsier

Hahnemühle Baryta print, size ca. 40x60cm, Edition of 5 (+ 1 A.P.).

Bart Koetsier (1975) is a Dutch portrait and documentary photographer based in Paris. Although people are key to Koetsier’s photographs, he also looks for places and objects to tell his story. In all images, he creates a strong cinematic atmosphere. The use of light is decisive here; events become scenes, people become characters and the locations become their scenery. For many years Koetsier followed the tradition of night street photographers in his series ‘Taillights Fade’ – walking the dark hours of cities in Europe at the beginning of the 21st Century. While working on this series Koetsier started a collaboration with writer Margot Dijkgraaf. Dijkgraaf’s pen highlights ten seminal Dutch and French writers, following their characters in Paris. Koetsier’s photographs follow their literary routes throughout the ‘City of Light’ in an extraordinary way. At the end of 2020 Dijkgraaf en Koetsier published their ‘Literary Wanderings in Paris’ at Boom Publishers Amsterdam.

Bart Koetsier exhibited sections of ‘Literary Wanderings in Paris’ in 2019 at the Maison de la Poesie in Paris. Sections of ‘Taillights Fade’ were exhibited in 2017 during the annual Dutch book fair with Koos Breukel and in 2016 at ParisPhoto – both at the Atelier Néerlandais in Paris. In between 2014 and 2018 ‘Taillights Fade’ was nominated for the Magnum Emerging Photography Fund and published by The Guardian, De Volkskrant, Burn Magazine, GUP Magazine, New damn Paper and VICE.
Based in Paris Koetsier works for Le Monde, America Magazine, De Volkskrant, Trouw, Het Parool, BNP Parisbas, CAPA, The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris and NGO’s such as Medecins du Monde and Premiere Urgence Internationale. Bart Koetsier is represented by Creative Bookers, photoagency Hollandse Hoogte and Hans Lucas.