Bertram Jesdinsky

Bertram Jesdinsky, born in Bonn in 1960, painted graffiti on the walls of abandoned buildings and empty billboards. He also produced music, Super 8 films, and staged performances. His paintings, combined with his sculptural works, created an original environment in which small objects accompanying the works sketched the world that fascinated him - the everyday life of West Germany during his childhood. These visual worlds are pulsating with a vibrant energy. Figures appear against brightly colored backgrounds, and the canvases are crowded with characters and everyday objects that take on a curious life of their own. Jesdinsky tells detailed stories in which animals and mythical characters go on a rampage.

In 1979, Jesdinsky began studying mathematics and history, but dropped out after one semester. In 1980, together with Thorsten Ebeling and Ulrich Sappok, he founded the "Anarchistische GummiZelle" in Düsseldorf. From 1982 to 1989 he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where he was a master student of Alfonso Hüppi. This period was followed by numerous solo and group exhibitions in western Germany, especially in the Rhineland.

After Jesdinsky's untimely death at the age of 32, his artistic oeuvre was shown posthumously in several exhibitions. Notable among these were the large retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, which subsequently traveled to the Leopold-Hoesch-Museum in Düren and the Kunstverein Freiburg; the exhibition at the Düsseldorfer Malkasten (2002); the exhibition "5 Artists - 5 Rooms" at the Kunsthalle Barmen in Wuppertal (2005); and the presentation of the Broska Collection at the Kunsthaus Wiesbaden (2016). In 2022, the artist Thomas Schütte dedicated a comprehensive solo exhibition to Jesdinsky at his Skulpturenhalle in Neuss, curated by Dieter Schwarz.

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