LENSCRATCH - Page 21 of 6218 - Fine Art Photography Daily

Jackie Mulder: Thought Trails by Galina KurlatNovember 18, 2025

Jackie Mulder’s first book Thought Trails, unfolds like a path, winding through textiles, beeswax, and embroidery that transgress a constructed image. The pages invite the reader to move slowly, to trace the tactile residue of memory embedded in fabric and thread. As a child, Mulder endured the constraints of a repressive religious upbringing, finding solace and freedom in drawing. Each composition in this book invites the viewer to wander and find comfort within an imagined terrain that feels both intimate and universal. The recurring use of thread mirrors the way memory moves, never fully linear, yet always searching for coherence. This thread weaves through the imagery, both navigating and unifying these landscapes, functioning as a guide through their dreamlike atmosphere.

As memory functions to both reveal and hide, these images move along with the viewer, changing depending what angle experiences them. The interplay of layers and textures creates a dynamic experience, suggesting that perception itself is unstable, contingent, and deeply emotional. Mulder deliberately shapes the space between each layer of fabric and composition to emphasize a constructed reality. These images are a glimpse into the depths of memory, of contemplation and the long road to healing.

Instagram: @jackiemulder

Web: www.jackiemulder.nl

Book: https://jackiemulder.nl/book-home shipping available worldwide.

My artist practice intertwines photography with textile, embroidery and drawing to create multilayered, tactile images and tableaux. My visual universe stems largely from my youth, when I started drawing as a means to cope with a repressive religious household. Over the years, I have crafted a unique working method allowing myself to create complex, stratified artworks—where photography provides the fertile ground from which a new, layered reality appears. Photographic images are stitched together, printed in transparent textiles, altered and deconstructed, then re-constructed and layered with beeswax, embroidery and drawing.

The physicality of the tableaux is also emphasised by a calculated distance between the different fabrics and textures, so as to create living imagery that changes and grows with the viewer’s moving gaze, never fully expose. Botanical elements, objects and textures all contribute to an ecosystem defined by a continuous process of healing, making my work a deep act of active contemplation that addresses trauma and the stratification of memory.

My first artist book, titled Thought Trails, reflects on the possibilities of such healing pathways and our essential relationship with landscapes and the natural world. Imagined as a possible trail unfolding through the pages, the sequence and treatment of the images invite the viewer to step into another world, be amazed, make their own story.

Amsterdam based artist Jackie Mulder was born in a small Dutch village in an oppressive, religious family. She created her own safe world by making meticulously scribbled drawings. At the age of seventeen she left home and freed herself from the limitations of her environment. She has remained committed to challenging the status quo and deviating from conventional norms, a theme that is reflected in her artistic expression. After a career as a fashion and graphic designer, she moved deeper into photography since 2021.

Her work is held in private collections worldwide and is featured in various international art fairs in Amsterdam, Geneva, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Paris. In 2024 she showed an installation from her Thought Trails project at Unseen Photography Fair in Amsterdam and summer 2025 she took part with an installation at museum Singer Laren in the Netherlands. Her work is represented by galleries in the Netherlands, Antwerp and Geneva. Spring 2025 she released her first book titled ‘Thought Trails’ at Photomuseum FOAM in Amsterdam. In the next few months her work will be on show at Art Antwerp, Art Geneva, Art Rotterdam and Art Paris.