Jesper Christiansen’s paintings are full of references and rich in detail. Throughout his practice, he has unfolded several different painterly expressions. What they all have in common is how they point back at inspirational sources from literature, music, and visual art. With Jesper Christiansen, painting is a language that can be examined through series. His White Chair Paintings from the end of the 1980s until the middle of the 1990s communicate a minimalistic, form investigating painting as well as an occupation with structure in the image surface, shown in the quivering white brushstrokes. His Word Paintings from the 1990s stand as a semiotic practice and an absolute devotion to language, its signs, and structures, and to the understanding of how a single letter, first and foremost, is an image.

Jesper Christiansen’s most recent works, such as the series Virginia Woolf Paintings, Paradise Paintings, and The Four Seasons, are all painted on black-grounded canvas. They are paintings of landscapes and interiors, mystical, compounded, and intensively figurative. The colors lighten up from the dark surface, and in several places, writing appears and is only just readable as titles and quotations originating from music and literature. Jesper Christiansen’s paintings are streams of consciousness; they encapsulate a cultivation of beauty and epic storytelling.

Jesper Christiansen (1955, DK) studied at The Royal Danish Academy of Arts in Copenhagen from 1981-1988, where he also functioned as a professor from 2003-2008. Jesper Christiansen has most recently had solo exhibitions at Ordrupgaard, Skovgaard Museum, Odsherred Art Museum, GL Strand, Brandts, Glyptoteket, and Le Bicolore in Paris. His works are part of several Danish art museums’ collections, such as SMK, ARoS, and HEART. Furthermore, he is represented in international collections in USA, Germany, and Sweden. Jesper Christiansen has created decorations for Frederikskirken – The Danish Church in Paris, Copenhagen City Court, Frederik VIII’s Palace, and the Copenhagen Opera. He has received several grants and awards, such as The Danish Art Foundation’s lifelong honorary grant and The Eckersberg Medal.

Selected exhibitions 

Jesper Christiansen på Ordrupgaard, Ordrupgaard, 2023

Temps, peintures et nota bene, Le Bicolore, Paris, 2022

De Fire Årstider, Skovgaard Museet, Viborg 2022

Ombre Flore, Maison du Danmark, Paris, 2019

FORBILLEDE, Gl. Strand, 2018, Copenhagen, 2018

GO BACK, Odense og Holstebro Kunstmuseum, 2013

ICI - her er godt at være, I.C Jacobsen 200 år, Ny Carlsberg Biblioteket, Copenhagen, 2011

Dingwelt, Richard Hainzmann Museum, Niebüll, Germany, 2008

Tinnitus Light, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany, 2002

Skiltemalerier,, Nye Arbejder, Esbjerg Kunstmuseum, 1992-92 

Resumé, Skive Museum, Horsens Kunstmuseum, Ribe Kunstmuseum, Denmark, 1992

Selected scholarships and honors

Thorvaldsen Medaillen, 2016

Ridderkorset af Dannebrog-ordenen, 2010

Eckersberg Medaillen, 1999

Lifelong art grant, 2009 

Jens Søndergaard og Hustrus Mindelegat, 1997 

Danish art council 3 year work grant, 1995