I'm interested in exploring the potential of relationships between image and text, working with photographic processes, writing and making books. Each edition is unique in approach and is published by my imprint Negative Press London.
Recent work includes Plastic particles in my testicles (Negative Press London, 2025), a personal response to microplastics pollution inside human bodies illustrated by plastic analogue positive film photography alongside writing. Eighteen Years Old (Negative Press London, 2024), a newspaper of writing without punctuation and photographs of fallen trees, recalls the circumstances surrounding a queerbashing attack (collection National Poetry Library).
Books from my press Negative Press London (www.neg-press.com) are in international collections including Museum of Modern Art Library, New York, US; Wellcome Foundation Library, London, UK; National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; Artists’ Book Collection, Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany; Bibliothèque Musée Français de la Photographie, Bièvres, France; Artist Book Collection, Bower Ashton Library, University of West England, UK.
Some Queer Animals (Negative Press London, 2023) – Shortlist 2024 Author Book Award, Arles Les Rencontres de la Photographie. Shortlist EI2024 Photobook Award, Braga, Portugal. Finalist Photobooks Photofrome 2025, Frome, UK
The Spots That Never Went (Negative Press London, 2018) – Highly Commended Finalist of the 2019 Cornish Family Prize for Art and Design Publishing, presented by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Exhibitions include Photofusion, London; Bruce Castle Museum, London; La Mécanique Génerale, Arles, France; Winchester Gallery, Winchester UK; Foyles Gallery, London; Dutch Centre, London; Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge; Bury Art Museum, Bury; and Marginal Arts Festival, Roanoke, Virginia, US.
My writing appears in short fiction anthologies, journals and academic publications.
Graduating in 2019 from Cambridge School of Art, my MA Fine Art show was awarded the Cambridge Artspace Residency.
roelofbakker(@)mac.com
@roelof_bakker
www.neg-press.com
CV ︎︎︎