Collection: Stefan Zéphyr Teske

Stefan Teske lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee and graduated as a master student. Positions at Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood in London shaped his early practice. Today he works as a draftsman, designer, sculptor, and lecturer. With his interdisciplinary works, he has had numerous national and international solo and group exhibitions.

Artist Statement:

The body is my central theme – as a sensual event, as an erotic story, as an intimate moment.
Years of engaging with fashion, construction, and tailoring have shown me how strongly humans are defined by systems and conventions, the body by measurements and norms, life by templates that are rarely questioned. Drawing is my counter-design – a space where only the gaze, the naked body, the posture, and a moment count.

I am a people-watcher. On the subway, on the street, in cafés – I watch. Drawing gives me something valuable: A legitimate reason to look longer. Deeper. More precisely. In the studio, in front of the living model, I am allowed to see what otherwise remains hidden, how a body occupies space. Vulnerability. Dignity. Eroticism. Liberation. I move between two poles: voyeur and exhibitionist. I observe and at the same time reveal something of myself: my perception, my fascination, an erotic attention towards what is before me.

My drawings emerge from an imagery beyond high gloss and academic perfection, a world where the grotesque is beautiful, the unfinished is honest, the sensual is present. Bodies with weight, with character, with what they have experienced. I celebrate bodies in their diversity, with structure, imperfection, and an aesthetic that always remains tied to the moment.