Ingar Kraus
The peaceful glow of things
Ingar Krauss was born in 1965 in East Berlin. A self-taught artist, he began painting, then photography, while working as a night watchman in a psychiatric hospital to make ends meet. In the early 2000s, his work was shown in Germany before gaining international recognition with exhibitions in the United States, Italy, France, and elsewhere in Europe.
Ingar Krauss is a photographer, but he also keeps bees and cultivates a garden where flowers and vegetables grow. This activity plays a significant role in his life, and observing nature and working in the garden are his main sources of inspiration. He even sometimes chooses his crops based on the still lifes he plans to create. Thus, his two passions complement and nourish each other. Just as the gardener tries to control and order nature, the artist composes an image of the world: the gardener does with his shrubs and plants what the poet does with words, assembling them in such a way that they appear new and strange, and also, as if for the first time, completely themselves.
He takes his photographs in medium format, composes his still lifes in a box, and photographs them in natural light: without a studio or artificial lighting, he creates an intimate and private space, outside of time. This work evokes classical painting, which, in the light of north-facing studios, strove to meticulously transcribe the physical and spiritual presence of objects. But there is no symbolism to decipher in Ingar Krauss’s photographs; he simply invites us to savor the peaceful radiance of things, and also, thanks to his unique perspective, to appreciate their beauty in a new way.
