Iris Donker®
DONKER (’s-Hertogenbosch, 1986) is a visual artist working from Eindhoven. Her practice unfolds through still and moving image, installation, text and sound, and is driven by an ongoing artistic research into how images, memories and narratives circulate, transform and persist over time.
At the core of Donker’s work lies an ever-expanding archive of images, built through intuitive processes of collecting, filming, writing and assembling. This archive functions as a dynamic source from which elements are continuously reworked and translated across different media. Rather than treating images as fixed entities, Donker approaches them as fluid components that can be fragmented, repeated and repositioned within new spatial and material contexts.
Her work is rooted in intuition and improvisation, yet shaped through careful composition and reflection. By deliberately leaving room for coincidence and openness, Donker resists predetermined outcomes and allows meaning to emerge through association, rhythm and spatial experience.
Working with both analogue and digital techniques, Donker combines 35mm film with digital processes.
At the core of Donker’s work lies an ever-expanding archive of images, built through intuitive processes of collecting, filming, writing and assembling. This archive functions as a dynamic source from which elements are continuously reworked and translated across different media. Rather than treating images as fixed entities, Donker approaches them as fluid components that can be fragmented, repeated and repositioned within new spatial and material contexts.
Her work is rooted in intuition and improvisation, yet shaped through careful composition and reflection. By deliberately leaving room for coincidence and openness, Donker resists predetermined outcomes and allows meaning to emerge through association, rhythm and spatial experience.
Working with both analogue and digital techniques, Donker combines 35mm film with digital processes.
These processes result in small-scale prints and large-format textiles, the latter often produced on spacious canvases of silk, recycled PET bottles and cotton, which almost appear as tangible projections.
Donker develops spatial environments in which image, sound, text and material operate as equal forces, unfolding as experiences that activate both the environment and the viewer. Light functions as a key element, altering perception and dissolving spatial boundaries.
Underlying her work is a long-standing fascination with belief systems, collective rituals and cult-like structures, particularly those emerging in the 1960s and 1970s. These historical references surface subtly, informing the atmosphere and narrative logic of her installations rather than appearing as explicit subject matter. Her work navigates the tension between seductive aesthetics and the dark realities beneath.
Alongside her autonomous practice, Donker regularly engages in project-based collaborations with writers, musicians and other makers, integrating text and sound as content-driven layers within her work.
Donker develops spatial environments in which image, sound, text and material operate as equal forces, unfolding as experiences that activate both the environment and the viewer. Light functions as a key element, altering perception and dissolving spatial boundaries.
Underlying her work is a long-standing fascination with belief systems, collective rituals and cult-like structures, particularly those emerging in the 1960s and 1970s. These historical references surface subtly, informing the atmosphere and narrative logic of her installations rather than appearing as explicit subject matter. Her work navigates the tension between seductive aesthetics and the dark realities beneath.
Alongside her autonomous practice, Donker regularly engages in project-based collaborations with writers, musicians and other makers, integrating text and sound as content-driven layers within her work.