Ilona Langbroek (1970)
Ilona Langbroek is a Dutch fine art photographer based in Hilversum, the Netherlands. She graduated with honors from the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam.
Her acclaimed series Silent Loss is a deeply personal body of work rooted in her family’s history in the former Dutch East Indies. The Netherlands’ long and complex colonial relationship with the region continues to leave profound emotional and cultural traces. Her work reflects on the loss of identity experienced by those who were forced to leave their homeland following Indonesian independence, and on the quiet persistence of this legacy across generations.
Through poetic and metaphorical imagery, Langbroek constructs a dreamlike recollection of the Dutch East Indies, at once luminous and distant, shaped by both beauty and rupture. Her photographs evoke a space suspended between memory and imagination, where nostalgia and melancholy converge.
Working with natural light, muted tonalities, and a carefully composed mise-en-scène, she creates a subdued, twilight atmosphere that evokes the fading past. Figures often turn away from the viewer or close their eyes, suspended between presence and withdrawal, functioning less as portraits than as carriers of an interior state.
Her painterly use of light recalls the intimacy of Dutch Golden Age painting, in which figures and interiors are held in quiet tension, while also resonating with a Northern European sensibility in which light, space, and silence coalesce into contemplative stillness. Within this visual language, Langbroek situates a specific historical narrative, where silence becomes a carrier of memory, loss, and displacement.
Langbroek’s work is held in both private and public collections and is exhibited internationally at leading galleries and art fairs.
Upcoming and Current Exhibitions
2026FFa
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23–26 April, AIPAD, Park Avenue, New York – United States
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14–17 May, Photo London, Olympia, London – United Kingdom
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16–21 June, Photo Basel, Volkshaus Basel – Switzerland
Exhibitions
2026
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Photo Basel, Volkshaus Basel – Switzerland
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Photo London, Olympia, London – United Kingdom
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AIPAD, Park Avenue, New York – United States
2025
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Art Miami, Miami – United States
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Paris Photo, Grand Palais, Paris – France
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PAN Amsterdam, RAI, Amsterdam – Netherlands
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Izzy Gallery, group exhibition, Toronto - Canada
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Premieres, group exhibition, Bildhalle Amsterdam – Netherlands
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Photo London, Somerset House, London – United Kingdom
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AIPAD, Park Avenue, New York – United States
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Blooming, group exhibition, Bildhalle Zürich – Switzerland
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Art Rotterdam, Ahoy, Rotterdam – Netherlands
2024
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Art Miami, Miami – United States
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PAN Amsterdam, RAI, Amsterdam – Netherlands
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Paris Photo, Grand Palais, Paris – France
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Peter Fetterman Gallery, The Great Woman Photographers, Santa Monica – United States
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Bildhalle, Solo exhibition Terra Incognita, Zürich – Switzerland
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Photo London, Somerset House, London – United Kingdom
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AIPAD, Park Avenue, New York – United States
2023
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Solo exhibition Remembrance, Bildhalle Amsterdam – Netherlands
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PAN Amsterdam, RAI, Amsterdam – Netherlands
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Paris Photo, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris – France
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The San Francisco Fall Show, San Francisco – United States
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Bildhalle, The Showroom, group exhibition, Zürich – Switzerland
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Photo London – United Kingdom
2022
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Bildhalle, The Showroom, group exhibition, Amsterdam – Netherlands
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Exhibition Traces, Museum Hilversum – Netherlands
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PAN Amsterdam, Art Fair – Netherlands
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Phillips Auction, London – United Kingdom
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Photo London – United Kingdom
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Photo Basel – Switzerland
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Bildhalle, Ocean, group exhibition, Amsterdam – Netherlands
2021
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Solo exhibition Terra Incognita, Bildhalle Hazenstraat, Amsterdam – Netherlands
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Anna Singer Art, Singer Museum, Laren – Netherlands
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PAN Amsterdam, Art Fair – Netherlands
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Photo Basel – Switzerland
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Unseen Amsterdam – Netherlands
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Photo London – United Kingdom
2020
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Photo Basel Virtual 2.0 – Switzerland
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Photo London Digital – United Kingdom
2019
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Expo FOS, Loods 6, Amsterdam – Netherlands
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Fresh Eyes, Tbilisi Photo Festival, slide presentation – Georgia
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Fresh Eyes, Les Rencontres d’Arles, slide presentation – France
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Fresh Eyes, Photo Basel, Volkshaus Basel, slide presentation – Switzerland
2017
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Expo Het Oog, Fotoacademie, Amsterdam – Netherlands
Publications & Interviews
2021
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A Photographic Life, podcast – United Kingdom
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Het Parool, Special PAN 2021 – Netherlands
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NRC, Fine arts review – Netherlands
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L'Oeil de la Photographie – France
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Medium Format Magazine, cover, interview, portfolio – International
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PF Magazine, cover – Netherlands
2019
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Moesson Magazine, cover, interview, portfolio – Netherlands
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Shutr Magazine, interview, portfolio – Netherlands
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PF Magazine, interview, portfolio – Netherlands
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Uncoated, Emerging Photo Talent platform – Germany
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Kiekie Tabloid, interview – Netherlands
Nominations & Awards
2019
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Selected Fresh Eyes, book presenting 100 greatest emerging photographers in Europe
2018
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Silver Award, The Portrait Masters, international award – United States
Presentations
2019
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Podium MH, Museum Hilversum, oral presentation – Netherlands
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Photoplaza, Kasteel Woerden, oral presentation – Netherlands
Education
2015–2019 – Fotoacademie, Amsterdam (Graduated with honors)
1996–2000 – Akademie Vogue, Amsterdam