Christiane Pedros

Christiane was born in Germany but left there at the age of 14 and moved to England. Whilst studying for her A-levels in Cambridge she started to practice photography seriously; she has since developed a great passion for documentary photography from travelling in Europe and Central America. Christiane's mythological-based artwork comes from having been confronted by a variety of cultures and her great interest in anthropology. In 2003 she returned to college to study for a BA(hons) in Photography at the London College of Printing. Since successfully completing her degree she tours Europe with her artwork, as well as working in the photographic industry on a freelance basis.

Christiane's current work looks at the tradition of The Domina Berchta, a fertility goddess who was once central to Bavarian folklore and who can be identified with the White Lady or White Goddess (Berchta means bright or luminous). With the influence of Christianity the image of The Domina Berchta became distorted until she was an ugly old woman, a patron of witches. Today hardly anyone in Germany remembers The Domina Berchta's original identity and certainly no one associates or ascribes to her any female element or divine female attributes. Christiane uses The Domina Berchta to create visual metaphors drawing attention to the divine female nature which was later distorted and supplanted in folklore; she photographed a Bavarian woman wearing a Domina Berchta mask in locations where The Domina Berchta visited each year around Christmas when myth depicts her travelling the countryside in her wagon followed by her entourage of horned animals, elves and the ghosts of tiny children.

Contact: Christiane_Pedros@Yahoo.com