Ingar Krauss (Germany)
Hannah
Space Preference: Museum, University Art Space, Non-profit Art Space, Commercial Art Gallery

Artist Statement
All lives are the same, the mother said, except for the children. About the children you never know anything. That’s true, the father aid, about the children you never know anything. - Marguerite Duras, Summer Rain

Persona (lat.) is the mask or appearance one presents to the world. It may appear in dreams under various guises.

My work focuses on the human condition, in particular that of childhood and adolescence. I am interested in these as phases of life in which neither body nor mind is yet defined, a time in between. I am not interested in superficial characteristics of youth, like clothing etc., my portraits are about the psychic space which these adolescent children and young people inhabits and the circumstances and the mystery of their existence. The photograph is both, a document and a vision. I want to figure out an authentic moment of intensity and concentration, and intrinsic within all transformations – the element of sadness.

In 1998 I began photographing my daughter and her friends. One of those friends is Hannah, an orphaned child who lived with her stepmother. When I took portraits of that circle of friends I recognized that I was especially interested in Hannah, because she seemed to have already a biography. As an orphan she had already a story to tell, she was a child and not a child anymore – a child of age. Over the years I took more than 30 portraits of Hannah, watching her transformation from a fairy girl into a young woman. She had many faces, I found her always striking and mysterious, in her own way unique.
Last autumn she became 18 years old.

Captions

1. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Zechin, 2000, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 30x24cm
2. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Zechin, 2000, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 75x61cm
3. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Ediger-Eller, 2001, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 75x61cm
4. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Zechin, 2001, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 30x24cm
5. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Zechin, 2001, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 75x61cm
6. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Zechin, 2002, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 75x61cm
7. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Zechin, 2003, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print,61x75cm
8. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Zechin, 2003, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 75x61cm
9. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Forte dei Marmi, 2005, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 61x75cm
10. Ingar Krauss, untitled, Zechin, 2005, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 75x61cm

Number of Images: unknown