Jana Stross (Rašková), née Velecká, is a photographer and pediatric nurse...
...who was born on September 7, 1973 in Ostrava into a teaching family, a family with a rich cultural and artistic life, especially art, music and dance.
Despite all the efforts of those closest to her, she decided not to continue the family tradition of teachers and graduated as a nurse from the Secondary Medical School in Nový Jičín.
She fell into photography only in 2006, when she got a small Panasonic compact camera. As she has a positive relationship with technical things, she began to research it in detail and discovered that a photo is not just a printed rectangle measuring 13x18 cm, but that it is an amazing medium with an endless range of creative possibilities...
The center of gravity of her inspiration and photographic work lies in the medical environment - her collection of pictures from hospitals are always very suggestive. The stories associated with the photographs bear a powerful statement not only about demanding professions, but also about the general reflection on the value of human life and health.
For Jana, as a nurse, the patient is always in the first place, but as a photographer she is fascinated by everything around him - operating rooms, inpatient wards, ambulances, long hospital corridors, waiting rooms, but especially the work of their medical colleagues.
Since 2007, she has been documenting - at work - the life of nurses, doctors, paramedics, nurses and other hospital staff, without whom patient care would not be possible.
"Taking care of a sick person is like a cherry on a
multi-tiered cake. Each of its tiers is different, but all together must form a
functioning and reliable whole. And I'm just interested in that cake! I just
love sweets!" says the author with exaggeration and
humor.
Her second set of black-and-white documentary portraits of
operating surgeons, entitled "Colleagues", won numerous awards at
international and domestic photography competitions, such as the International
Photography Awards Los Angeles, London International Creative Competition,
Great Photo Awards Portrait World Athens or Czech Art Photo Zlín. Even though
the photos are black and white, they convey emotions to us in a gentle and
tender way, images and stories that take place in situations that are not
always rosy...
On the contrary, the images from everyday life, which make up a smaller part of her work, were selected and published by the American art magazine Edge Of Humanity Magazine.
Jana has had several group and solo exhibitions, e.g. Mánes Exhibition Hall Prague or House of Lucie Gallery Budapest.
The files "Operating room" and "Colleagues" can be seen in large-format printed form at the University Hospital Brno, where they form a permanent exhibition - symbolically, they returned to the places where they were created...
The media:
2024 - hosted by VERUM PHOTO link
- Open ART Fest 2024 link
2022 - interview in podcast Schůzky Tomáše Berana link
- the art magazine Edge of Humanity Magazine published a selection of images from the "From Life" series link
Other:
2024 - 2022 she was a member of the "Club of Moravian Photographers, z.s. Brno" (hereafter CMP) link
2015 - founded the Facebook group "Foto - Líšeň" and a year later registered association of the same name Foto - Líšeň, z.s. of which she is the chairperson link
2015 - workshop Jan Šibík (We take photos with a mobile phone)
2009 - co-founded the photography group "28mm"
2011 - 2009 she graduated from photography workshops of Antonín Kratochvíl
(Under the surface and Selection), Jan Pohribný (Light in the landscape) and
Jiří Turek (Portrait, fashion, nude)