Konny Steding, also known simply as Konny, is a German painter and performance artist. Her distinctive style can be recognized in her black and white works featuring the peace sign, which she has displayed in the streets of Paris since the 2000s.
She identifies with the Neo-Expressionist movement, associated with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Julian Schnabel—a broad and loosely defined movement that is not strictly a school of painting, and which some link to the Punk scene.
Their roots originate with the German artists who founded the Expressionist movement during the interwar period, notably Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and George Grosz.
This artistic lineage, following her studies at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts, led Konny Steding to activism, travel, and eventually settling in Paris, where she became part of the Parisian underground and the libertarian Punk scene. She is drawn to the streets and the metro, where she paints on posters while respecting the integrity of the buildings.
An artist in love with freedom, challenging restrictive authoritarianism and carrying a certain nihilism, she conveys a serious and subversive message, occasionally brightened by a touch of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Working with various techniques such as oil, acrylic, and collage on different supports, the artist expresses herself through figurative painting that is fluid, free, and characterized by rapid gestures. The confidence of her line springs forth spontaneously from an urgent need to express herself with sincerity and total creative commitment—a fierce energy bordering on the revelation of intimate suffering. Ink splatters become tears, shrouding her faces in a melancholic poetry.