Fragility and existential vulnerability are the main themes of Rineke Dijkstra’s research.
Her images question a human reality decontextualized from its social and urban context, and highlight decidedly isolated, “abstract” feelings. Sometimes, a hand without any muscular tension is enough, or the same one while in contact with the fleshy volume of a leg to emphasize the psychological motions, fragility and uncertainty of a state of mind.
Most of the portraits of the Dijkstra are precisely oriented to manifest the loneliness of the subjects and to propose them as “human metaphors”.