FLORIAN HEINKE | ALLES WIRD GUT | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON

Frankfurt enfant terrible Florian Heinke presented his first London solo exhibition in
Shoreditch with CHARLIE SMITH LONDON.


CHARLIE SMITH LONDON was delighted to present Florian Heinke with his first solo exhibition in London.


Heinke is known for his paintings that alternate between political polemics and transcendental beauty. Combining text and image only in black acrylic on unprimed canvas, Heinke’s methods are unique and highly impactful. Schooled initially on the streets of Frankfurt, Heinke discovered studio painting after being arrested for graffiti, writing:


“Once I got arrested and they put me into a programme in a workshop. They offered me an alternative punishment: to work in their painting studio. I did my first canvas there with brushes and
colour. Graffiti was just the valve to show my rage, incomprehension and sadness.”


Heinke went on to study at Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz before untertaking his Masters at the renowned Städelschule. Since then he has gone on to become one of Germany’s most vibrant young painters, exhibiting globally and being placed in prominent private collections, including that of Michael & Susan Hort in New York.


Despite retiring his spray cans at an early stage, elements of street semiotics continue to endure. The use of text in both German and English; an absorption of advertising techniques; and a clash of imagery derived from various sources coalesce to reference high, low and mass culture.


‘ALLES WIRD GUT’ – translated as ‘Everything will be fine’ – will present a typically Heinkian worldview. Smattered with irony, poetry, longing, derision, optimism and fury, the exhibition embodied Heinke’s ongoing notion of‘Paradise Overdosed’, traversing contemporary and modern politics; celebrity; glamour; greed; beauty and decay.

EXHIBITION DATES: Friday 09 September – Saturday 08 October 2016

Bataclan | 2016 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 180x130cm

 

Comfort of a stranger | 2015 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 100x80cm

Desert strikes | 2015 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 100x80cm

 

Destroy to rise | 2016 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 60x40cm

 

Grace | 2016 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 90x70cm

 

Kein Gift auf meine Blume | 2016 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 100x80cm

 

Punkfees | 2016 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 100x80cm

 

We´ll laugh when it falls | 2016 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 90x70cm

 

When time sleeps 25 | 2016 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 150x120cm

 

When time sleeps 28 | 2016 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 150x120cm

 

Aloha redrum | 2015 | Acrylic on untreated canvas | 60x100cm

INSTALLATION SHOTS