BIOGRAPHY
PETRA JAENICKE is an experimental photographic artist working in Odenwald, Germany. She studied both media design and photography, graduating with a degree in design. Her jobs as a freelance photographer, art, and film director, with a foray into education science, have opened up a wide field of experience for her. In 2016, she fulfilled her dream of being able to concentrate her work solely on experimental photography. In 2019, she signed and became a member of the international artist collective, the nonamecollectivegallery, London. In 2020, 2021, and 2022 consecutively her works were published in Artdoc Global Photography Magazine, Spectaculum Magazine, and NNC Art Magazine London. She has received several art and photography awards, and her work has been shown in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, New York, Oslo, Singapore, Milano, London, Venice, and Abu Dhabi. Petra’s works are currently exhibited in and represented by several international modern art galleries. She started producing video clips in 2022. Her first NFT Collection will be launched in 2023.
CV
2023
• Chelsea International Photography Competition, Group Exhibition,
Agora Gallery, New York
• “Interferences” International mixed reality art exhibition, M.A.D.S.
Art Gallery, Milano
• “Borderless” Verse Gallery, by Norwegian Cultural Centre, Oslo,
Norway
• “Borderless” EXP-SG Singapore
• NFT collection “Stay Loose”, at dinya.io/NFT Gallery, 2023
• “Borders-Hybrid Identities” Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, Venice, 12th
May
• “Venice Experimental” Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, Venice, 19th May
• Artist of Galeria Azur, Berlin
2022
• Spectaculum Magazine 02.2022, Feature series “Stay Loose”
• Coverphoto NNC Art Magazin London, Feb. Issue 2022
• Shortlisted Siena Creativ Photo Awards 2022, Italy
• Lelie Galerij, Amsterdam, selected for Lelie Art Award 2022
• Photo PopUp Fair, Stilwerk Düsseldorf, Germany
• Biennale Artbox Expo di Venezia, shown in Tana Art Space
• Contemporary Art Ruhr, Essen, Zeche Zollverein, Germany
• ND Award, International Photography Contest, Honorable Mention
• Tokyo International Foto Award, TIFA, Silver Winner in Fine Art
2021
• Artist of Gallery Rodart, international art gallery for modern and
contemporary art
• Interview NNC Artmagazine, London, March Issue 2021.
• Artist of Albe Art Gallery, international art gallery for modern and
contemporary art
• “Speechless” Group Exhibition, Albe Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi
• Shortlisted Siena Creativ Photo Awards 2021, Italy
• Photo PopUp Fair, Stilwerk Düsseldorf, Germany
• Spectaculum Magazine 07.2021, Feature series „Beyond Certain“
• ARTe, Kunstmesse Wiesbaden, Germany
• „Transzendenz“ Group Exhibition, Villa Claudia, Forum for current
contemporary Art, Feldkirch, Austria
2020
• Contemporary Art Ruhr, Essen, Zeche Zollverein, Germany
• Beyond Aesthetics – Group Exhibition, ARTDOC Gallery, March 2020
• Cover photo and Promotion in “A guide to creating your photo
project”, Artdoc Magazine 2020, London
• Shortlisted Siena Creative Photo Awards 2020, Italy
• ARTe Wiesbaden, Germany
• “Dada and Democracy” Group Exhibition ArtDoc Gallery, Dez. 2020
• “The Essence of Photography” ArtDoc Magazine 3/2020
2019
• ARTe Wiesbaden, Germany
• Photo PopUp Fair, Stilwerk Düsseldorf, Germany
• Cromatic Award 2019 „Honorable Mention in Fine Art„
• Artist 2019 of NNC nonamecollectivegallery London
2018
• Exhibition “Urban Jungle“ Frankfurt, Artexpert Sylvia Berrnhardt und
Lisa Klocke
2017
• Cromatic Award 2017 “Honorable Mention in Fine Art”
• Member of Lensculture https://www.lensculture.com/petra-jaenicke
2016
• Winner of “Surreal Photography Contest”, YAG
• Exhibitions: “Heaven and Earth”, Linus Galleries
• Exhibitions: “Vibrance”, Linus Galleries
• Artist of YAG, Your Art Gallery, New York
STATEMENT
The question “How real is our reality?” underlies all my work. Many philosophers, among them Sartre, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, have explored whether there can be an objective reality at all if everything is filtered through subjective perception. Constructivism and philosophical theory are similarly based on the assumption that it is our perception that creates the surrounding realities.
My photo art enables a form of the personal reconquest of reality, arising from a longing to allow radical subjectivity in the appropriation, perception, and representation of the world. The photographed motif is merely the initial starting point for my creative process. My digital transformations show reality as interpretation and at the same time as irritation. Thus, something new emerges, born of the real yet detached from it, and photography becomes a medium for tracing the subjective in the objective. Digitally superimposing different motifs, blurring or playing with a negative and positive presentation simultaneously, are some of my essential design tools for surreal compositions. This lets the naturalism of the image fade out, while at the same time enhancing its inherent meaning. My photographic artworks, multi-layered in the truest sense of the word, show the potential, the strength, and yet the fragility of the figures. Artistic creativity with photography as a medium turns into a dance with and around the “real”, and plays with something that lies beyond the photographed subject, leading the beholder into a reality that can no longer be explained by intellectual judgment alone.
My works become the image of a journey into my poetic and aesthetic appropriation of the world, and yet they leave the viewer plenty of room for their perception and experience. To lead the beholder to a new visual and aesthetic ground in art photography, and thus to a more critical approach to the medium. In times of increasingly virtual realities, I try to re-explore reality to use the medium of photography to contribute to a contemporary interpretation. And, as Gerhard Richter says, “Art is the highest form of hope” and it is hope and healing that especially today are most urgently needed.
