Jonny Star

Jonny Star's mother belonged to the scene as part of the circle of the American theatre director and theatre manager Ernest Martin from the late 1960s on.

Jonny Star (born December 26, 1964, in Düsseldorf, Germany) is a German artist.

There her parents opened an alternative hotel which became the vacation destination of the Düsseldorf art and theater scene in the 1970s.

In 1982 Jonny Star left her home and became part of the West Berlin subculture.

From 1985 to 1992, Jonny Star co-operated the legendary cult bar Café Anfall in Berlin-Kreuzberg and had extended stays abroad in France, Spain, Portugal, the US, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Morocco, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger before starting to work professionally as a visual artist in 1996.

In 1990 she passed her A-levels in an all women's class at the School for Adult Education (Schule für Erwachsenenbildung) in Berlin and studied Psychology at the TU Berlin from 1991 until 1996.

In addition to her artistic work, she initiated and curated international exhibitions and art projects like Showroom Berlin (1996–1998), JONNY'S (2007–2009), SWEET HOME (2011–2012) and SUPERUSCHI (since 2013).

Since 1996 Jonny Star has exhibited internationally.

In her artistic work, Jonny Star uses various materials and media which she often combines, such as bronze, photography, fabric and installation elements.

Star usually creates series of works that develop over several years in parallel.

From 1997 to 1999, she learned Mold making and the process of bronze casting in the prestigious Berlin based fine art foundry Bildgießerei Hermann Noack.

In early bronze sculptures like the series Dear Germaine (1998) or and suddenly (1998–99) she creates humanlike imaginary creatures that deal with the counterpoints of heaviness and lightness, movement and stagnation and with themes like imprisonment, exposure or suffering.

In the years 1999 to 2005, followed numerous stays in Portugal.

In the bronzes of the series alle zusammen (2001), suchen eine reise (2003), and wachen sein tot (2009–10) the artist additionally uses found objects from nature.

In some work series, such as JETZT KOMM ICH (2007) or in the soft objects, cushion-like objects for the wall like My Flowerself (2010), Jonny is Back (2011) or komm ruh' dich aus (2012), Jonny Star deals with her own biography embedded in a private everyday aesthetics.

Until 2011 she worked as an artist under her given name Gabriele-Maria Scheda.

She lives and works in Berlin and in New York City, United States

Jonny Star spent her first ten years in Düsseldorf and the surrounding area before moving to the Hochsauerland region (North Rhine-Westphalia) with her parents and two sisters.

With the change of her name from Gabriele-Maria Scheda to Jonny Star in 2011, occur more frequently topics like sexuality, physicality, identity, gender roles and their social reception.

In March 2011, Jonny Star developed the exhibition project Sweet Home out of the preceding project Jonny's. The shows also took place at Star's apartment.

International artists were invited to exhibit their work in a solo exhibition in Star's staged, exuberant living room.

During the openings and events, Jonny Star installed a Portuguese bar with food and drinks.

In December 2011, Sweet Home was invited to exhibit at the art fair SCOPE Art Show Miami 2011.

In Sex Sells (2013), Toy Girls (2014), Toy Boys (2014) or Free Your Soul (2015) Star accesses heterosexual and homosexual Internet pornography.

She transfers video stills that she photographs from the screen or photos from pornographic magazines on fabric and collages them on doilies, or on self-made fabric objects and tapestries to reveal discriminatory gender clichés or sexual taboos that exist in our society.

Many of her works of art criticize the structures of the global art market that should be "forward thinking and unconventional, but represent one of the most strikingly conservative patriarchal structures."

Jonny Star develops group exhibitions in private homes, such as her own, or in gallery and project spaces, where Star creates spatial interventions to imitate the intimacy of private spaces.

Star's main interest is to form of a participatory community of artists and visitors of the exhibition, as well as creating a greater awareness of the necessity of art in everyday life.

She sees herself not necessarily as a curator, but rather as someone who brings "people together for a collective experience."

The exhibitions are not profit-oriented and were supported by the Berlin Senate Chancellery for Cultural Affairs among others or financed through crowdfunding campaigns.

Ostensibly, Jonny Star's arts project Jonny's is a Portuguese shop (later with Café) in a part of the artist's ground-floor apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Most of the delicacies sold there were obtained directly from the manufacturers in Portugal and had an unusual, anachronistic packaging design.

In fact, Jonny's was an expansive art installation, also hosting exhibitions of different artists.

On the shelves, between the food and household goods, bronze sculptures, collages and paintings were shown.

Life and art were considered equal here.

Exhibition openings, performance evenings, readings and artist talks were held regularly.

The exhibition series Superuschi (since March 2013) emerged from Star's projects Sweet Home (2011–2013) and Jonny's (2007–2009).

International visual or performance artists participate and reflect together with Jonny Star a particular theme.

The result is an exhibition that facilitates the interaction between space, objects, artists and guests, in terms of a Social sculpture.

The artists have the opportunity to network with each other and the visitors attain a more direct participation in visual and performing arts.