Ingar Krauss

Ingar Krauss was born in 1965 in East Berlin, in what was then the GDR. He now splits his time between Berlin and Zechin, a village near the Polish border. After completing his military service and working for many years as a psychiatric caregiver, he turned to photography in the mid-1990s, gaining recognition for his poignant, meditative portraits of children and teenagers.

Krauss lives on an old farm where he grows his own vegetables and raises animals. Since 2010, he has focused on creating still-life portraits that reflect his close connection to the land. While nature is highly regarded today, it is often idealized. The rural world, however, still embodies a more practical, and sometimes harsh, relationship between the farmer, the hunter, and the land. Through his images, Krauss captures this raw reality, offering a personal and poetic perspective that resonates universally, almost as a tribute to a vanishing way of life.

Krauss develops his own black-and-white silver gelatin prints and then hand-paints them in oils using a limited color palette. This unique approach evokes the painted photography of the 19th century, lending a timeless quality to his depictions of rural East Germany at the turn of the 21st century.