Iwajla Klinke

Iwajla Klinke is a German photographer who studied art history, Islamic and Jewish studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, graduating in 2002. Her work reveals a fascination with the sacred and the ways in which this manifests itself in bodily adornment. The precision and classical aesthetics of his portraits evoke some of the great baroque painters of the golden age, such as Van Dyck or Caravaggio. His camera records people whose clothing indicates individuality, even eccentricity, and where ritual is implicit. All are presented in a formal manner that sometimes recalls the conventions of painted portraiture.  

Klinke is especially fascinated by age shortly before puberty, the abandonment of childhood and impending transformation, and travels the world to find her subjects. Recent solo exhibitions include "Infants," Museum Haus Lowenberg, Gengenbach "Palindrom," Städtische Galerie, Bad Reichenhall (2018), and "Infants," Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris.

Her group exhibitions include "Gates of Horn and Ivory", Kristin Hjellegjerde, Berlin (2018); "Ein gemachter Mensch", Kallmann Museum, Munich ( 2018) and Neuflize Collection, Paris (2017). In 2014 he received the Neuflize OBC Personnel Prize. His works are in relevant public and private collections, He has participated in different Art Fairs, among others, Art Cologne, Art Brussel, Photo Paris, Art X Lagos (Nigeria), Artissima (Italy), Contemporary Istanbul (Turkey).