Lucrees van Groningen

Lucrees van Groningen specialises in palladium and three-color gum printing. Her handcrafted prints explore themes like decay, memory, and everyday beauty, blending technical precision with a deep appreciation for slow, tactile processes.
From: Deventer, The Netherlands
Shows: Gum bichromates, Gum over Palladium, and Palladium prints

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Lucrees van Groningen is a Dutch photographer who specializes in palladium printing and three-colour gum printing.

Photography has been a lifelong passion for Lucrees, beginning with film and countless hours spent in the darkroom, meticulously developing and printing the best negatives by hand. Though the process was time-intensive, it was deeply rewarding. As life and photography technologies evolved, she transitioned to digital, but soon found it lacking the tactile, artisanal quality she craved.

Lucrees van Groningen’s search for something more meaningful led her to gum printing. Despite its deceptively simple ingredients, gum printing presented many challenges. With patience and persistence, she discovered her own path, experimenting with everything from paper types and sizing to color layers, exposures, and negative densities. The result was a practice that offered not just images, but unique, handcrafted objects—each print a singular creation with its own identity.

In addition to her multi-color gum prints, Lucrees also creates black-and-white kallitypes toned with palladium. The soft, rich blacks of palladium seem to melt into the paper, offering a timeless, stable quality that echoes the tactile beauty of gum prints.

Her work explores themes such as Childhood Home, Flowers, Decay in Everyday Life, and Wear, Tear, and Repair—each reflecting her interest in the delicate traces of time and memory.