Citta di Palermo, 2024

Filipp Jenikäe  

Filipp Jenikäe is a German artist born in 1987, who lives and works between Münster and Paris. Coming from a family sensitive to art, he was introduced to artistic creation very early on by his mother, an art teacher, while his sister studies art history. Despite this family environment, Jenikäe does not pursue academic artistic training. He first studied law and political science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, then pursued business management studies in the Netherlands. It was later, after giving up his childhood dream of becoming a professional basketball player, that he fully discovered his passion for painting.

While living in Berlin, a city that accompanied his first creative research, Filipp Jenikäe develops a practice mainly based on acrylic painting on canvas and, more recently, on linen. His work is interested in pop culture, notably through representations of athletes and musicians. Sport, music, travel, and scenes of daily life thus nourish a pictorial universe marked by an attentive observation of contemporary society. His works also represent urban landscapes and lively social scenes, inspired by places such as bars, clubs, gardens, and different spaces of large cities.

Jenikäe's painting is distinguished by his interest in the different societies in which he has lived and by his way of transforming personal experiences and references from contemporary culture into images. His claimed influences include notably Henry Taylor, Jonas Wood, Nina Chanel Abney, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, George Grosz, David Hockney and Faith Ringgold. These references cross a practice that associates figuration, contemporary visual culture, and scenes of life.

Today, Filipp Jenikäe is represented by galleries in Hong Kong, Paris, and the United States. Several of his works have also been sold at auction at Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips. His work thus belongs to a scene of contemporary art where painting becomes a means to document popular culture, social practices, and the experiences of contemporary life.