Jonah Gebka

My paintings show diverse and reciprocal relationships between different protagonists - human and non-human entities, things, landscapes and patterns.

I construct my motifs on the basis of everyday observations and a collection of image and text fragments. This involves appropriating existing images and integrating them into new contexts. Working in series allows me to identify nuances in the narrative and compositions of my paintings and to specify pictorial statements through small variations.

The viewing habits of our digitally determined world, such as the aestheticization and fragmentation of our reality and its overlapping with images and information, shape our perception. In my work, I try to take away the harshness of these influences through gentle alterations.

Biography

Jonah Gebka (born 1989, Bonn) lives and works in Munich. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Prof. Karin Kneffel and at the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts in Finland.

In 2023 he received a travel grant from the Free State of Bavaria for the USA. There he was a guest artist at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Peninsula School of Art in Wisconsin, among others. In 2022, the Stiftung Kunstfonds supported his exhibition project Blue Light and the publication Browser. In 2020 he received the Debutant Award of the BBK München und Oberbayern and published his artist book Image Runner in the same year with Hammann von Mier Verlag, Munich. His work has been shown in institutions and galleries in Germany and abroad, including Strobe, New York, US; Tiffany Street House, Providence, US; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in der Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Kunstraum Ortloff, Leipzig; Boutwell Schabrowsky, Munich; and Kunstverein München.

Gebka's works can be found in the Collection of Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn; the Artothek and Bildersaal Collection, Munich; and in various private collections.Translated with DeepL.com (free version)



jonah.gebka at gmail.com, Instagram, Download CV as PDF