Matthias Jun Wilhelm

Matthias Jun Wilhelm (born in Braunschweig in 1986) lives and works in Leipzig. He studied painting at the Braunschweig University of Art under Friedemann von Stockhausen and Olav Christopher Jenssen, graduating in 2015 as Jenssen’s master student.

His works have been exhibited in Copenhagen, Vilnius, and Tokyo, among other places, and are represented in public collections. His most recent international exhibitions include Galleri Susanne Ottesen, Copenhagen, Denmark (2024); Lithuanian National Library, Vilnius, Lithuania (2024); Shimokitazawa International Puppet Festival, Tokyo, Japan (2024); and Japanese Cultural Institute, Cologne, Germany (2020). He has received grants from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. (2023, 2020), the Kunstfonds Foundation (2022), and the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony (2020), among others.

Wilhelm’s painting moves between calligraphic precision and loose spontaneity. Recognizable motifs are woven into his works, while at the same time he explores new visual languages and methods.
“For me, painting is a space where thought and gesture overlap—where traces of doubt and immediacy remain visible. There is a rhythm to my way of working, a kind of physical thinking. The image carries the memory of this movement within it. Instead of adhering to formal uniformity, I rely on a sense of presence. It is this that holds things together. In this, my themes grow out of moments of personal resonance and visual sympathies.” (Matthias Jun Wilhelm, 2024)