ABOUT
With her ongoing global series The Averted Portrait, Corina Gertz explores the intersection of cultural heritage, identity, and artistic expression. The work focuses on people in traditional clothing and costumes, whom she portrays exclusively from behind against a black monochrome background.
By minimizing body proportions and skin tone, the garments themselves emerge as cultural constants, expressing individual history as well as collective belonging across regions and generations. These often inherited garments embody history, craftsmanship, social memory, and cultural knowledge. Her work seeks to respectfully reveal the identity and cultural context of those portrayed without compromising their individuality. This creates a tension between community and intimacy, as well as between aesthetic, political, social, and cultural narratives. The Averted Portrait is also a visual plea for diversity, remembrance, and respect—values essential for a democratic society. By portraying cultural identity not as a barrier but as a shared cultural memory, the photographs consciously counter uniformity and cultural homogenization. The project aims to make visible what is often overlooked or marginalized and to create spaces for empathy, reflection, and appreciation of cultural difference.
Gallery representation by
Galerie Clara Maria Sels, Düsseldorf
Ira Stehmann Fine Art, München
Nine Art Space, Shanghai