Max Jahn was born in West Berlin in the 1990s, the son of East German parents who emigrated shortly before the fall of the Wall. In the reunified German capital, Jahn grew up straddling differences that, on the one hand, seemed to be rapidly disappearing and, on the other, persist even today.
He is a self-taught painter who works primarily in small formats, with a keen sensitivity toward objects, materials, and the presence they exude. His paintings are not mere snapshots of a moment, but rather depict people and places imbued with time and memory. The artist paints directly from life, allowing meticulous observation to determine the rhythm and structure of each work, resulting in faces darkened by the time spent looking, with a calm and concentrated intensity.
The use of copper as a medium reinforces the historical significance the artist attributes to portraiture, endowing the works with a dense, concentrated surface that also preserves traces of past contexts and histories, heavily influenced by the faces of the Dutch masters. Furthermore, Jahn selects each frame from his father’s antique shop and treats them as another active element of the work, evoking domestic spaces, personal histories, and a tangible connection to the past and still life.
The Berlin-based painter has held solo exhibitions at Cabin, Berlin, Germany (2024), and at Nosbüsch & Stucke, Berlin, Germany (2023), as well as at the Gratin gallery, in his first exhibition in New York with the show Time Spent Looking.
