I’m a Hastings-based artist exploring the potential of storytelling.
I experiment with photographic processes, I write and make and publish books.
My work responds to contemporary social issues and to historical events, often through the lens of the lived experience. Violence is a theme I explore throughout my work.
Books from my press Negative Press London (www.neg-press.com) are in many collections including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Wellcome Foundation, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London;
Artists’ Book Collection, Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany; and Musée Français de la Photographie, Bièvres, France.
Some Queer Animals – 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 – Highly Commended Finalist of the 2019 Cornish Family Prize for Art and Design Publishing, presented by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Eighteen Years Old is in the National Poetry Library collection
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 Artspace Residency.
roelofbakker(@)mac.com
@roelof_bakker
www.neg-press.com
CV ︎︎︎