Jana Gertz is a visual artist born in Riga, Latvia and currently based in Tallinn, Estonia.
With a background in philology, restoration, and contemporary photography (Academy of documentary and art photography “Fotografika”), her practice unfolds at the intersection of memory, fiction, and loss.
Working primarily with photography, she explores auto- and biographical landscapes shaped by disappearance, confabulation, and mythologization of personal and family histories.
Through a process that combines intuitive image-making with the use of personal and archival materials, Jana investigates how constructed memory can serve as a vessel for emotional truth and collective resonance.
Using visual metaphors of absence and substitution, she asks what it means to seek truth through invention.
Education
2023 — 2025 — Academy of art and documentary photography “Fotografika”
Selected publications
2024 — Private Photo Review, “Catalogue of Forgone Objects”
2024 — JUP — Journal of Urban Photography, “Catalogue of Forgone Objects”
2024 — FK Magazine, “Catalogue of Forgone Objects”
2024 — BROAD Magazine, “Catalogue of Forgone Objects”
2024 — PhMuseum, “Catalogue of Forgone Objects”
2025 — Landscape 2024 issue, F-Stop Magazine
2025 — PhMuseum, “A Car, A Song, A Vanishing Man”
2025 — PhMuseum, “Blue Heath”
2025 — Republic, “Catalogue of Forgone Objects”
Exhibitions
2025 — Loosenart “Echoes of Yesterday”, collective exhibition in Rome, Italy
2025 — BBA PRIZES 10 Years anniversary exhibition, BBA One Shot Nominee, Berlin, Germany
2025 — “Dom — próba rekonstrukcji”, Jonkowo, Poland
2025 — Vice Versa PhotoCollective, Gardinovci, Serbia
2025 — Photometria International Photography Festival, Ioannina
UPCOMING
2025 — ZOETROPE Athens
2026 — The Glasgow Gallery of Photography, collective exhibition “Dyptich/Tryptich”