A Journey from St. Petersburg to Berlin: Weaving Personal History into Art
Lena Weiss, a Berlin-based artist with roots in St. Petersburg, integrates her unique life experiences into her art, creating images that are rich with texture and emotion. Her journey to becoming an artist started long before she formally studied photo design in Berlin, where she focused on blending classical photography with her love for art history. Weiss’ early years in the natural landscapes of St. Petersburg deeply shaped her artistic perspective, sparking an enduring fascination with the overlooked aspects of life that most people miss in their daily rush. Now, in Berlin, her passion lies in finding beauty in the mundane and exploring how images can tell deeper stories beyond their immediate appearance.
Weiss’ style of blending traditional techniques with unconventional materials allows her to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. She challenges her viewers not to simply see her work, but to engage with it, asking them to reflect on their own perceptions. This philosophy draws from her personal journey, a life spent exploring the intersection between different cultures and experiences. By layering her own insights into her images, she invites a level of emotional engagement that extends beyond the surface of the photograph, encouraging her audience to pause, reflect, and see the familiar in a completely new way.
Growing up immersed in nature before relocating to Germany, Weiss developed a keen sense for the subtleties of the natural world. This awareness is evident in her art, which emphasizes the power of sensory perception and challenges traditional notions of what photography can be. Her creative process is just as diverse as her background, moving seamlessly between classical photography and modern, experimental techniques to create works that provoke thought and evoke emotion.
Lena Weiss: The Artist Who Never Lost the Eye for Wonder
For Weiss, becoming an artist wasn’t a decision inspired by a single moment or influence, but rather a process of maintaining the creativity and wonder that she believes everyone is born with. In her view, everyone enters the world as an artist, but it takes effort to hold onto that raw creativity as we grow older. Weiss has managed to preserve that artistic spark, using photography as her medium to share her unique sensory perceptions with the world. Her ability to capture life’s subtleties is the result of this deep-rooted connection to her inner child—a theme that permeates much of her work.
Weiss’ artistic style is deeply personal, combining traditional analogue photography with digital techniques to create images that challenge the viewer’s understanding of reality. She often uses minimal post-processing, relying on the purity of the captured moment to tell the story. Sometimes, her work is crafted on the go, even with something as simple as her iPhone camera, proving that for her, the medium is secondary to the message. This fluidity allows her to approach each project with a fresh perspective, adapting her tools to the vision she seeks to convey.
While her work draws from classical photography, it is also imbued with a sense of innovation. Weiss’ images are multi-layered, both literally and figuratively. By using diverse materials and techniques, she creates pieces that invite viewers to look deeper, urging them to see beyond the obvious. Her art is not just a mirror to reality, but a lens through which to question it, often exploring themes of perception, impermanence, and the emotional resonance of the everyday.
The Power of Play and Intuition in Weiss’ Creative Process
Lena Weiss’ workspace is as dynamic and varied as her artistic output. Rather than viewing distractions as obstacles, she embraces them as part of her creative process. When she’s photographing in public spaces, gathering inspiration from the street art scene, or documenting life as it unfolds, distractions become sources of unexpected ideas. On the other hand, her home workspace is a sanctuary of peace, where she allows herself to become “timeless,” focusing solely on the intimate connection between herself and her subject.
When it comes to photographing people, Weiss has a unique approach. She strives to create a moment of authentic connection, where both artist and subject can feel free to be themselves. This bond between photographer and subject often results in deeply personal portraits, capturing more than just a likeness, but a moment of emotional truth. Her intuitive process, where she trusts her gut over her mind, allows her to capture fleeting moments that feel both spontaneous and carefully considered.
One of Weiss’ most significant influences comes from a source closer to home—her experiences babysitting, particularly with her own son. These moments allowed her to see the world from a fresh perspective, much like the worldview presented in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a book that has profoundly shaped her artistic philosophy. This sense of childlike wonder permeates much of her work, inviting viewers to rediscover beauty in simplicity and to look at the world with fresh eyes.
Lena Weiss: Crafting Meaning from Impermanence
Among the many pieces Lena Weiss has created, one stands out as a deeply personal exploration of impermanence and the fleeting nature of life. In 2013, Weiss captured an award-winning photograph, one that she had an instinctive sense would resonate before she even pressed the shutter. In a darkened room, Weiss waited patiently, trusting her intuition to guide her. The resulting image, which she confidently predicted would win a competition, did just that. But its significance goes far beyond the recognition it received; for Weiss, the piece embodies the delicate balance between the tangible and the ephemeral.
This photograph serves as a meditation on transience, an exploration of how objects or moments that seem solid and real can blur into abstraction when viewed from a different angle. For Weiss, the piece is a reminder that both life and art are filled with ambiguity—what seems clear one moment may dissolve the next. This concept of impermanence is central to much of her work, encouraging viewers to consider their own fleeting moments of clarity and confusion as they engage with the art.
Weiss’ ongoing dream project also builds on these ideas of collaboration and shared creative expression. She envisions a body of work that involves other artists, where she captures portraits that then become the foundation for new artistic interpretations. By allowing these artists to use her images as raw material for their own creations, Weiss fosters a sense of artistic community. This collaborative process, where the boundaries between photographer and subject blur, is yet another way she explores the fluidity of identity and perception in her art.
