Studio visit: Dineke Versluis
◼︎ Studio Visit: Dineke Versluis
22 March 2026 · by Marlike Marks
© Marlike Marks
Last month, with Unseen coming up, I visited Dineke Versluis in her studio in Rotterdam. It was a bright, sunny day, the kind of light that somehow felt very fitting to her work.
Dineke and I first met in 2024, on a quiet afternoon in the gallery. It was during the solo exhibition of Vivian Ammerlaan, when Dineke walked in to have a look. She had signed up for a Print Sale later that spring and wanted to see what kind of place we were. I remember she was surprised she hadn’t come across Ballon Rouge before, and how much she liked the space. We immediately connected.
In 2025, we presented her first solo exhibition at Ballon Rouge. Our collaboration has always felt very natural and easy, and showing her work at Unseen feels like a logical next step.
I love Dineke’s images: there’s a clarity and precision in them that feels almost effortless: clean compositions, strong colors, quiet scenes. Everything seems to fall perfectly into place. And yet, the longer you look, the more subtle details begin to reveal themselves. Small shifts, unexpected alignments, quiet coincidences that give the images a certain lightness, sometimes even a sense of humor. I often find myself spotting what I now call Dineke-images out in the world. It’s a way of looking that stays with you.
© Marlike Marks
Her studio reflects that same balance between control and openness. It’s a very organized space, yet everywhere you look something is happening. Walls, doors and magnetic boards covered with prints: layered, overlapping, combined with tape, fragments, and small found objects. Some works feel in progress, others seem to have been there for a long time, waiting.
In that environment, her way of working becomes very tangible. Images are moved around, revisited, sometimes left untouched for days or weeks. Nothing feels rushed.
We spoke about when a work is finished. For Dineke, it’s not a fixed rule but a feeling, a moment where it simply feels complete, where adding more would only take something away. That sense of restraint runs through much of her practice. Even when she intervenes in an image, it never feels excessive.
© Marlike Marks
At the same time, her process leaves space for coincidence and chance. One of the works we discussed started with something going wrong (tape damaging a photograph), which she then covered with another image and pink tape. In the end, she preferred this version over the original.
The series she will present at Unseen, Post Studies, grows directly out of her studio practice. Using photographs taken during her travels in the US, Curaçao, Morocco and elsewhere, she reworks existing images through minimal interventions with tape and layering. Dineke says she doesn’t want to explain to viewers where to look, or what to notice first. Connections happen more intuitively, both in the making and in the viewing. Something fits, or it doesn’t.
In recent months, she has started translating these smaller, intuitive studies into larger, framed works. This shift in scale adds a new layer to the process. The gestures become more deliberate, the compositions more considered, yet the origin remains something quick, almost casual.
When I think about why I wanted to present her work at Unseen, it comes back to that combination of precision and lightness. Her work feels very clear, but never closed. There is space in it, for interpretation, for coincidence, for the viewer to find their own way.
Curious to see the works in person? We’ll be presenting Dineke Versluis’ work at Unseen Photo, part of Art Rotterdam, in Ahoy this week.