Engaging with the “Other” and blurring boundaries are the central themes of Jakob Stolte’s work. He works across painting, drawing, and digital media, layering them in complex processes. By alternating between control and letting go, the artist creates biologically inspired forms that he calls organoids. Key themes include contradictions, ambiguities, and the synthesis of opposites.
Jakob Stolte was born in 1995 near Rostock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. From childhood, his passion for drawing and painting was combined with a lifelong interest in natural forms and the creation of alien beings. During his school years, his work was initially highly illustrative, and he invented speculative extraterrestrial worlds. At the same time, the artist was introduced to digital media at an early age and began exploring digital image editing as a teenager; later, he taught himself 3D modeling and visualization.
In 2015, he began studying at the Caspar-David-Friedrich-Institut in Greifswald. There, Jakob Stolte focused heavily on painting and new media, soon exploring ways to combine the two fields. His illustrative approach initially evolved into an engagement with landscape, strongly influenced by Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy. It was here that his first organoids emerged, created using procedural modeling and incorporated into realistic landscape depictions like landmarks. Towards the end of his studies, his abstract-figurative approach took shape, in which biomorphic forms form an independent composition.
The pandemic represented a particular turning point for the artist, as his own themes took on a relevance that disturbed him. However, the lockdown period was exceptionally productive and influential, also marking the completion of his studies. His final project explores biomorphic sculpture and 3D printing, influenced by the approaches of Henry Moore and Lynda Benglis.
A year later, together with other graduates of the University of Greifswald, he participated in the group exhibition “Allerbeste Aussichten. Neue Generation Kunst” at the PEAC Museum in Freiburg—his first exhibition in a professional context. This was followed by further group exhibitions in Essen, Hamburg, and Berlin. From 2025, his first solo exhibitions will take place in the Hamburg area, where the artist now lives and works.
Jakob Stolte aims to continually develop his concept in an evolutionary manner. He is currently expanding his repertoire of techniques and is interested in the human form and photo-scanning processes.
