It was Diane Arbus who said 'a picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know', and in portraiture this was never truer, for even a photographic portrait of oneself becomes a sort of mystery. Who is this person that purports to be me? What is this masquerade of identity that I am presenting to the world? If one is a mystery to oneself, then much more so is the mystery of another. The 'other' becomes a mystery that is wrapped in a mystery, and in the end all one is left with is an enigma. A portrait of a moment excised from time in the flow of a life, an instance of a presence that is no more, is therefore always something of a puzzling occurrence. In this sense like all important portrait photographers Jan Sobottka is something of a mystery maker.

Mark Gisbourne, Curator, Berlin, März 2014