ABOUT THE ARTIST – Akte One

AKTE ONE ART

ABOUT

THE ARTIST

ONCE UPON A TIME

In 1991, AKTE ONE picked up a spray can for the first time to immortalise itself on the wall and leave its presence behind.
To this day, the artist has constantly rediscovered and developed himself further.

AKTE ONE

MARK MARQUARDT

CONTEMPORARY URBAN ART

CURRICULUM VITAE (short version)

1978 – born in Berlin (Eastside)
1986 – relocation to West Germany (Augsburg) with parents
1989 – re-relocation to Berlin (Lichterfelde, then Neukölln)
1996 – 1999 – training and qualification as Sign and Neon Advertising Sign Maker
2000 – continuing education studies as Web Designer (Multi Media)
1991 – start with graffiti design
1998 – first recordings as rapper/musician/songwriter
2008 – start of work as Graffiti-Coach e.g. at schools in Berlin
2009 – first work on canvas/paper and with Mixed Media
2012 – birth of his son Bruno Marquardt
2016 – start to work with Cren

AKTE ONE THE ARTIST
THE BEGINNING

FROM HERE TO FAME

Akte one has become one of the most established representatives of the graffiti scene. Like many young people, his artistic career has been formed by the quest for an own identity. Induced by the relocation from East Berlin to West Germany, and further frequent relocations and continuously changing surroundings, these questions began to increasingly matter to him: “To what and where do I belong? Who accepts me?”
When the answers to these questions are missing, many young people become disoriented.

In the early 90´s, when Akte joined his first graffiti gang, he finally experienced the acceptance as a personality he had been looking for, and also the group´s protection.
Gradually, he discovered a world that at first was mysterious and secretive to him, the world of his own pictures and tags that has been holding him in its spell until today. Akte painted on walls and other media in the capital and learned that he was respected for it.

AKTE ONE THE ARTIST
PASSION

FROM LIFESTYLE TO PROFESSION

Over the course of years of productivity, he became known within the scene for his graffiti art, proved his talents as a rapper, produced albums, and today belongs to the established representatives of the Berlin hip-hop and graffiti scene. In addition to his creative work, one of AKTE’s ambitions is to pass this culture on to next generation.

As a trained billboard and neon sign maker, AKTE was strongly influenced by typography and employed it in his creative work. He constantly developed lettering styles via sketching as well as graffiti, and invented his logo “a!”, which now can be found in almost all of his works. Parallel to his career in the urban realm, AKTE discovered the small format of the canvas and has used it for new experiments in the studio and to develop additional new techniques.

AKTE ONE THE ARTIST
OUTPUT

TRUE TO THE GAME

Akte brings in much of his feelings to his work, also their conversions. Though this does not change the handwriting that always remains recognizable. The script always matters greatly to him and it is in some way his “alter ego“, by which he wants to communicate and inspire others. His work lives above all by the forms, depth, individuality, and also his coulour canon, and aims at taking the observer into his world and inspire them to dream.
The dense multiformity of AKTE’s paintings rewards extended consideration from the viewer, and the embedded “quotes” from the graffiti lexicon evidence a deep internalization of Hip Hop culture.

Akte one always remains the authentic graffiti artist, on the wall, on canvas and in his mixed media work, who develops the urban expression and the characteristics of graffiti writing and who will certainly surprise us with more work worth seeing.