Jiri Georg Dokoupil - Untitled gold and soap bubbles on canvas, 90 x 100 cm, verso signed on the frame: dokoupil Jiri Georg Dokoupil is an artist of Czech origin who was born in Krnov in 1954, yet from his youth he grew up in Cologne and now lives alternately in Berlin, Las Palmas and Rio de Janeiro. One of the prominent figures of the contemporary art wave in Western Europe, Dokoupil applied naive figurative painting in the early years of his work, later using more expressive forms. He is known for his former membership in the Mulheimer Freiheit group of painters working in Cologne. Dokoupil developed several innovative painting techniques, winning fame for his candle paintings, where the canvas is suspended above the artist as he gradually creates the painting with candle smoke used instead of brushes and paints. However, his soap bubbles are what really made him famous: a unique technique in which soap bubbles are placed directly on the canvas. Dokoupil has had numerous solo exhibitions at many institutions, including the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst in Antwerp, the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas, the Central Museum in Utrecht, and the Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna.