bio

Born in East Germany in 1984, Chris Johanssen grew up in a creative tension between East and West during the time of the German unificiation. Working for video productions in her early years, she developed a deep and profound affection for images and the camera. She worked as photographer for daily newspapers for six years and moved to Berlin to become an Art Photographer. She took herself the time to study the scene and the field and worked as an assistant for a number of well-known photographers of the Berlin scene. Opposing the official beauty cult, she consciously started to explore the “real” world of beauty in all its depths and contradictions. Her first cycle of works in this topic was created in 2009 when she lived among artists of different fields in an artist’s residence in Berlin. Her portraits of these artists received instant acclaim among photographers, visitors and collectors alike; the intensity, pureness and emotion of these portraits immediately reaches the observer and provoke response. Chris Johanssen is currently still living in this artist’s residence in the middle of Berlin.