Ben Mahler – The Time Traveler with Ink 

Ben Mahler (b. 1970) is a Belgian artist who specializes in oil printing, a complex and poetic photographic technique. 

After receiving a classical education in analog photography, he was truly moved by historical processes such as oil printing, through which he discovered an emotional and unique visual language.

A workshop in carbon printing and meetings with specialised artisans at Picto Benelux introduced him to oil printing. Mahler then immersed himself intensively in the craft for three years, designing his own tools and developing a refined technique in which ink serves as a language.

His style is melancholic, abstract, and atmospheric. He refers to his works as “particles in a time machine”—images that do not depict people, but rather emotions and fragments of transience. His models are not humans, but particles of time that remember, feel, and fade.

Mahler combines digital techniques with artisanal processes and simple materials (fine art cotton paper, gelatine and Japanese oilbased inks), resulting in a timeless poetry. 

For him, photography is not a technique but a philosophy in which past and future merge into pure imagination.

He approaches his works as paintings: the manual ‘painting’ with ink and the unique character of each image make reproduction impossible. The oil print process is a slow process. It takes a lot of time to make one oilprint.

That’s why Mahler presents his photographs not as photographic prints, but as original, tangible works of art.