Mike Okay

Painting

Text

What remains of the person we once were? Perhaps we remember the past primarily through the feelings it has left within us. A scent, a colour, a gesture or a familiar scenario is often enough to make those same feelings return.

In my new works, I am trying to understand which experiences have shaped me and why certain things continue to evoke feelings in me to this day. What lies behind pastel violet and rollerblades? Why do the passageways, courtyards and open spaces behind the prefabricated buildings speak to me of freedom, adventure and new beginnings? Why do certain colours, poses or objects still trigger these precise feelings in me? I am interested in these connections. They tell me something about the person I have become.

I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. The aesthetics of that period are my visual mother tongue. This is why plush masks, rollerblades, toys, architectural suggestions, pastel colours and graffiti gestures appear in my work. They form the vocabulary I use to speak about freedom and control, curiosity and uncertainty, closeness and distance, vulnerability and self-assertion. I use the aesthetics of my childhood and adolescence to speak about my present.

For Smells Like Teen Spirit, I am expanding my painting to include another sensory layer. Together with the scent artist Veronika Raupach, I have developed a fragrance composition especially for the exhibition, which will accompany the gallery space. For me, scents function in a similar way to images. The smell of rain on warm concrete, sunscreen on sweaty skin, rapeseed fields or flowers from my grandparents’ garden does not recall a specific story. Instead, it brings moods and experiences back to life—experiences that continue to resonate within me to this day.

In my exhibition, painting and scent are part of the same search. Both lead me back to the experiences that have shaped me—in search of what remains of the person I once was.

Mike Okay on the exhibition “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, 2026

Biography

  • 1980 born in Halle
    1998 Co-Founder of the artist collective KLUB7
    2001 - 2002 Studies of Architecture at HTWK Leipzig
    2003 - 2010 Studies of Design at Burg Giebichenstein University of the Arts, Halle
    lives and works in Berlin and Halle

Solo Shows

  • 2026  Smells Like Teen Spirit, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
    2024 Turbo Diary, We Collect Gallery, Madrid (ES)
    2023  Alle Pudel fliegen hoch, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
    Von Anton bis Zylinder, dieHO-Galerie, Magdeburg
    2020 Toy Stories, Valerius Gallery, Luxemburg (LU)

Group Shows

  • 2026  Dance Like Nobody’s Watching, Bunker Galleria, Florenz
    New Heavy Shit 2, NBB Gallery, Berlin
    2025  Knotenpunkt, Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg
    NEW, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
    RE:PLAY, Ulstrup Gallery, Kopenhagen
    2024  NEW, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
    GREETINGS FROM LE, Jari Lager Gallery, Köln
    Wir sind Kunst, Kunststiftung Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle
    Fractals, C Square Gallery, Taichung City
    New Heavy Shit, NBB Gallery, Berlin
    2023  Like a deer, gr_und, Berlin
    Dream Paper 2, Galerie Slika, Lyon
    Der Unterschied im Gleichen, Galaxie Neuer Künste, Halle
    3-A-DOZEN, Galleri Sandberg, Odense
    Chicken is off the menu, Galerie Kleindienst, Villa Heike, Berlin
    2022  Sileo, Galaxie Neuer Künste, Halle
    NEW, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
    Annika Nuttal Gallery, Aarhus
    Kosmos Haendel, Hallescher Kunstverein, Halle
    2021 Fluffy Bananas, Valerius Gallery, Luxemburg
    Hey! Follow Me! It’s Happy Our Time, Galleria Fran Reus, Palma
    2019  Coming Off The Wall, Kunststiftung Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle
    Facing Realities, The Art Union, Berlin
    2018 Coming Off The Wall, Bethanien, Berlin
Exhibitions
Artist Website