"It’s usually the first frame or the last frame that I end up using for my final edit. You can dance a little bit around it to see what else you can do, but I feel it’s never as strong or good as the first vision you had."
Rivers, puddles, and shards of glass. Metal spoons and empty bottles. With an eye for texture, layers and serenely saturated colors, Jessica Backhaus makes photographs that reflect the world back to us. “We grow, we change, we evolve,”Backhaus writes in the opening to her 2008 monograph,One Day in November. Bu twhile we move, the objects she photographs remain static, warmed by the mid-afternoon sun and preserved by the motion of time. Backhaus is not preoccupied by the sadness of the world around her, although the pictures she takes are often filled with broken, tangled, and abandoned items. Instead, like a philosopher focusing her gaze on the middle distance, Backhaus meditates on color, line, light and shadow.
"I found myself in the position where I was always looking, you know, observing. I was always behind rather than in front, and I think somehow there, the dream, the desire, was born to become a photographer." - Jessica Backhaus
Jessica Backhaus was born in Cuxhaven, Germany in 1970 and grew up in an artistic family. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Paris, where she later studied photography and visual communications. Backhaus met famed photographer Gisele Freund in Paris in 1992. Freund was an important mentor and major source of inspiration for Backhaus’ early work. In 1995, Backhaus’ passion for photography drew her to New York, where she assisted photographers, pursued her own projects and lived until 2009.
Backhaus is regarded as one of the most distinguished voices in contemporary photography in Germany today. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin. To date, she has fivepublications to her name:Jesus and the Cherries, 2005; What Still Remains, 2008;One Day in November, 2008;I Wanted to See the World, 2010; and Once, Still and Forever, 2012, all published by Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg.
Based in Berlin, Backhaus divides her time between Europe and the United States.
Collections
Taunus Sparkasse, Bad Homburg, Germany
Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany
Arendt Art Collection, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Margulies Collection, Miami, Florida, United States
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, United States
Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Collection, Akron, Ohio, United States
ING Art Collection, Belgium
Fonds National d'Art Contemporain (FNAC), France
Artothèque de Passac, France
Alexander Tutsek Foundation, Germany
Art Collection, Cleveland Clinic, United States
Private Collections, Europe and the United States
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Six Degrees of Freedom
Jessica Backhaus Jessica Backhaus , 2015Hardcover , 112 pagesRead more
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin
Dimensions: 9 x 11 Inches -
What Still Remains
Jessica Backhaus Jessica Backhaus , 2008Hardcover , 96 pagesRead more
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Dimensions: 11.25 x 10 Inches -
Once, Still & Forever
Jessica Backhaus Jessica Backhaus , 2012Hardcover , 88 pagesRead more
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin
Dimensions: 9.75 x 11.75 Inches -
Jesus and the Cherries
Jessica Backhaus Jessica Backhaus , 2005Hardcover, 144 pagesRead more
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Dimensions: 10 x 13 Inches -
One Day in November
Jessica Backhaus Jessica Backhaus , 2008Hardcover , 125 pagesRead more
Publisher: Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg
Dimensions: 8.5 x 9.5 Inches