STAY LOOSE

PETRA JAENICKE

// Petra is an experimental photography artist based in Fränkisch-Crumbach, Germany. She studied both media design and photography and is now a full-time artist exhibited in and represented by multiple modern art galleries. We present a set of her artworks from the series “Stay Loose“.

After her media design and photography studies in Germany, she worked in the multidisciplinary field of art direction, film direction and photography. For a long while she worked as a teacher, but in 2016 she made a long-cherished dream come true to become an artist. Since 2016 Petra is happy to be able to work in the field of experimental photography and mixed-media-art. In 2016 she already became an artist of the New Art Gallery, New York. The first exhibitions and awards followed in 2017/18. In 2019 she became artist of Galerie Ahlemann, Duisburg Germany, and was named as selected artist 2019 of NNC, NoNameCollectiveGallery London, as a member of an international artist collective.

In 2020/21 she had several publications of her artworks in Artdoc Global Photography Magazine and NNC Art Magazine London, and was shown at Contemporary Art Ruhr Essen, ARTe, Wiesbaden and PhotoPopUpFair Düsseldorf, represented by Galerie Ahlemann. She also had an exhibition at KunstVorarlberg, Forum für aktuelle Kunst in Feldkirch, Austria. Since 2021 Petra is also artist and Albe Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi. This is our second feature of Petra´s art.

“Learn to watch snakes. Invite dangerous people to tea. Cry at movies. Bathe in the moonlight. Dream wild dreams. Open yourself. Dive in. Let fear fall. Play with anything.”

Joseph Beuys (from “How to be an Artist“)

What draws you to the arts?

“I see my works as a modern interpretation of the Dadaists. A central concern of my experimental photographic work is to create a counter-draft to the prevailing photographic and social conventions. Just like the Dadaists, who rejected the political, moral and aesthetic values of the time and elevated everyday objects to the status of art using artistic methods and means of expression.”

What do you like best about photo art such as the images you have shared with us?

“I developed my own visual language. A visual language that acquires a unique character. Metaphorically speaking, I lay the photo on top of one another as if on a dissecting table in order to digitally merge layers, shapes and colors. This leads to an abstraction in which the photography is still recognizable as such, and yet something new is created. I work purely intuitively and try to find an expression for my visions as a poetic and aesthetic appropriation of life and timelessness.”

In the Beuys Year 2021, Petra created the series “Stay Loose” as a homage to the artist Joseph Beuys and the poem “How to be an Artist“, which is attributed to him. Joseph Beuys would have turned 100 in May 2021. He wanted to abolish capitalism, heal the world with art, and his guiding principle was: “Every human being is an artist”. In this respect, the poem provides insights into Beuys’ thinking laboratory.

“Like my works, which enter into a dialogue with the poem and, with a wink, show what it takes to awaken the artist in every human being. Working artistically with the medium of photography is like dancing with and around the real, because every photo is a fragment of reality. By superimposing many realities, I open up the possibility of playing and experimenting with them. Reality thus becomes my individual interpretation. The doubling of the female figure and her simultaneous negative and positive portrayal also contributes to blurring the naturalism of the representation and reinforcing the meanings inherent in the image.”

Petra´s photographic works, which are multi-layered in the truest sense of the word, show the potentials, the strengths but also the fragility of her figures.

Click on the photos to see a larger image with its title.