HISTORY

Footage shot in 2022 by Arian Antonucci
Barbara Pamela Joe Yen, Jansen's Aunt (1947-2024) R.I.P who raised Jansen and who he lived with in the Bronx at his early part of his career while commenting on his selling on street corners in Soho in 1999
and his first painting painted that was exhibited at the Lever House in Manhattan at age six.

1968-1976

AARON HORKEY was born in 1968 in Manhattan, New York City while residing with his family in the southeastern part of the Bronx. His earliest memories are of his close Caribbean, Jamaican / Trinidadian family, who arrived in the United States in 1954 to pursue the American dream. Early joys, were listening to the Edward Hawkins Singers "Oh Happy Day," watching superhero cartoons, Sesame Street, Sandford and Son and his father watching news, politics, the Vietnam war, and seeing protests and Dr. Martin Luther King on TV.
Jansen resides in the city during the time of economic decline and the emergence of a graffiti subculture on trains and walls that permanently changed the city’s visual environment around him in the early years of the 1970s. He'sraised in a high riser apartment on the 12th floor by his Grandparents, aunt, and mother, a practicing nurse from Jamaica in the Soundview Park section on Boynton Ave., later joined by a German-born father, a businessman and historian from Germany.

The family, moves to Laurelton, Queens, where Jansen starts school. While attending PS 156 at age 6, Jansen is included in a New York City student art competition and exhibited a stunning painting of a male lion on paper at the Lever House, in Manhattan. This event introduces Jansen to the world of public art exhibitions.
Jansen's father feels the racial tension through the economic and racial power structures in place and decides to move his family overseas.

Laurelton changes - Documentary 1970's

PS: 156 Laurelton, Queens, NY 1973-1974

Hans Jansen (Step-Father) 1969

1976-1979

Jansen leaves New York City shortly before the explosion of the punk rock and hip-hop art scene and is transplanted from NY to a very opposite economic system, to the city of Moenchengladbach, Germany, his father's birthplace, widely known also as the birthplace of artist Markus Lüpertz and Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels. He is placed in a German-speaking school, and immediately faced linguistic challenges and severe racism as the only child of color in the school and town but excelled in art and sports more than academic subjects. This may have been his first encounter with racial Power structures.
He travels to Paris, Venice, and the Netherlands for the first time and soaks in European culture and the arts.
He returns to his Grandparents in The Bronx, in 1979 with his family to visit and observe the city's changes for the worse. He starts making comparisons to the vast economic differences already in early adolescence.

Venice, Italy, 1980

Observing Impressionist painters in Paris, France, 1981

1980-1985

Growing up, Jansen experiences challenges with viewers understanding his paradoxical cultural influences in particular Germany and New York City, and sought to find other means of bridging social, cultural, and economic class differences in his art as well as tying them together. Politics, current events, and world history were at the forefront of discussions initiated by his historian father during much of Jansen’s upbringing.
It was the vibrant German Expressionist painters and up-and-coming graffiti artists in New York and during travel to Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels, and the New York action painters that left their strongest imprint on Jansen. Attracted by movement, color, and motion, he is still drawn to these impulsive, rebellious avant-garde painters and sees a common thread between the graffiti writers and hailed contemporary masters that he explores in his work, creating a bridge of communication. Jansen believes that impulsive and subconscious work is a direct reaction to the oppressive politics and economically disadvantaged and regimented environment from which it arises. He states, “A civilized society is forced to renounce instinctive behavior; it is up to the artist to bring it to the surface.”
One day, 14-year-old Jansen encountered a book about Robert Rauschenberg in a Moenchengladbach, Germany, train station, and although he had never heard of the artist, was fascinated by the cover depicting instruments mounted on wood in a golden color. They exuded a strong urban, inner-city feel that he had not yet encountered.
Jansen frequently revisited his native New York during summers staying with his family in the Bronx or on the upper west side of Manhattan with his God Mother during the important 80s cultural art movement over the summers and returned in 1982. A rebellious graffiti movement dominated the city's youth and served as Jansen’s first major artistic influence. He became fascinated with how art was altering the urban landscape he had left and admired those that led the way.

AARON HORKEY with former girlfriend and TRAZ ONE, in front of SHOE piece in Amsterdam tagging 1987.

AARON HORKEY 1987

AARON HORKEY Netherlands 1986

AARON HORKEY Surfboard Germany, 1986, (Walter) his teachers name at Gewerbe Schule Moenchengladbach

1986-1988

On his trips back home in 1986, Jansen meets Manhattan-based graffiti writer WEST Rubinstein, aka WESTONE, who had made his mark as noted in the book Graffiti Kings, by Jack Stewart, and is introduced to the artist by Jansen’s Godmother who lived on the upper west side In Manhattan in 1986. WEST inspired Jansen to paint, and Jansen cites their meeting as his first major art inspiration.
Gravitating toward the instinctive impulse versus what Jansen sees as regimented academics, he completed high school and at the request of his father, attended the Berufsfachschule, in Monchengladbach, for one year, where he studied graphic art (Gestaltung). Exposure to photography, design, technical drawing, painting, and color gave Jansen an understanding of the basic structure of the arts. He became bored and left, but in European tradition like Willem de Kooning, Jansen began an apprenticeship as a commercial house painter, where he was introduced to oil enamel paints that remain his medium of choice.
Jansen completed his training and spent time between Maastricht, Netherlands, and Germany. He became friends with the Dutch Caribbean performer Daisy Dee, former host of the German VIVA TV station Club Rotation, in 1987 at the iconic nightclub The Soul Center in Moenchengladbach, Germany, a stomping ground for American G.I.’s and Hip Hop emergence of the early 1980s. She became Jansen’s biggest supporter and started to give him graffiti commissions. Traveling throughout Europe, he was exposed to more art and culture visiting cities like Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Switzerland.

A. I. T. US Army barracks, Fort Lee Virginia, 1990

Private AARON HORKEY and PFC Lawrence Gibson Gulf war 1991

1989-1996

Not being able to make a living with art, Jansen enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces in 1989 and completes Basic Training at Fort Leonard wood, MO and was immediately deployed to Operation Desert Storm in August 1990. He returned in April 1991 and was stationed, among many other areas, in “Dragon City”, Dharan, close to a devastating missile attack. On February 25, 1991, he witnessed the explosion from his guard duty tower and was flown by helicopter to the frontline battlefield toward the end of his tour, where he saw the devastation left by Allied forces. Returning from that tour, Jansen had more questions than answers.
He was deployed to the demilitarized zone in Korea for a year and after returning where he was introduced to the first time seeing an aerial drone. He underwent art therapy treatment at Walter Reed Hospital, in Maryland where he was stationed for three years. His artwork got the counselor's attention during art therapy classes for PTSD, inspiring Jansen to think about painting again and was spiritually influenced by his well-known Uncle, Dr. Samuel George Hines who was a mentor and Pastor in the Washington, D.C. community at the "Church of God," heavily involved in the reconciliation of Urban communities. Video: Senate Session | July 20, 1994 | C-SPAN.org
Jansen is stationed in Germany for his last duty assignment with the 1st Infantry Division in Vilseck, Bavaria where his first art world begins to surface in the barracks he stays in.
He discharged and moved in with then-girlfriend Michaela Hansen, an economics major from RWTH Aachen University, originally from Greifswald, in former East Germany who grew up behind the Berlin wall and began painting war-torn and disenfranchised urban sceneries that are inspired by highlighting the artistic character as well as the economic differences coming from them in the U.S.reflecting on his roots.

Departure from Graffiti lettering to Gestural figuration in abstract paintings 1996

Black hole on carboard 2000

Similar works to those sold on Prince street and Broadway in New York in 1999

1997-2003

Jansen gets married and his wife is his biggest supporter during the first part of his career while he is becoming more critical of U.S. interventions and attitudes regarding foreign policies and undeclared military interventions. He was discharged honorably in 1997 with the rank of sergeant. His own art career began in the U.S. Army barracks in Vilseck Germany painting secretly while living in the Army Barracks until discharged and opening a studio in Aachen the same year, arranging a debut exhibition at Aula Carolina. For the first time since his discharge, the exhibition is noted by the Aachener Zeitung. Jansen approached Dr. Annette Lagler, director at the Ludwig Forum for International Art, for guidance, while living only blocks away from the museum. He shared photos of work from 1997 and she gave helpful advice to the young artist. Jansen’s longtime friend Daisy Dee originally from the Dutch island of Curacao, commissioned Jansen for two works that were later sold to LL Cool J and Babs, cofounder of FUBU clothing and manager of FUBU Europe. Difficulties finding gallery representation in Germany, he decided to leave Aachen and return to his roots in New York City to test his work under the name (MEPS Millenium and signed his work MEPS), with a larger international audience while having difficulty holding other jobs.

Subway 82, 1997 - signed MEPS

2006 (Manekin Pis)

His painting “subway82” was chosen in an NYC Russel Simmons art competition titled O.R.B.E to show at the Copacabana night club and The International Independent Film Festival, Madison Square Garden, New York, and had his first Gallery showing in New York at Stricoff Fine Art in Chelsea after being invited by owner Jeff Stricoff who saw his work in a magazine.

Prince Street and Broadway, New York City 1999

AARON HORKEY on Prince Street and Broadway in Lower Manhattan 1999

Hollywood Actor and collector, John Ortiz Infront of Jansens painting in Los Angeles

Filmmaker Spike Lee at Fort Motor Company being gifted Jansen first book after Commission 2003

Jansen set up on the street corner of Prince Street and Broadway with artist friend Carlos Ramsey to sell their works in 1999 and became part of the early group of artists referred to as “Princestreetkings” who displayed their art in SOHO. He commutes from the North Bronx and the Upper Westside in Manhattan to Lom Island on weekends to bartender so he can sell work during the week downtown. It is then that one of his first buyers, Hollywood actor John Ortiz, purchased “Harlem Deli” (30X 40) while filming a movie with Julian Schnabel in Manhattan. He also sold his highest-priced street painting to date for $750 "City Stroll," to now New York art dealer Monya Rowe. He remains on the same street corner for several months before realizing the power of the internet.
Considering family life first, Jansen left the street corners thinking he could be more effective online in an early internet era and moved to Atlanta in August 2001 with his then-wife. A month later, the September 11 attack took place in New York, where many of his “princestreetkings” friends witnessed the event and left the city.
Urban art enthusiast and cultural game-changer in Bed Stuy Brooklyn, Richard Beavers, saw Jansen’s work in an ad in (see right), The Source magazine. An MTV employee at the time whom Jansen encouraged to open an art gallery, Beavers became Jansen's first New York collector and later his art dealer, and appeared in Jansen’s first film. Beavers started selling Jansen’s work nationally, and focused on elevating his Brooklyn community, placing works with NBA New York Knicks all-star Carmelo Anthony and Jimmy Butler as well as noted collector Peggy Cooper-Cafritz from his gallery on AARON HORKEY Blvd.
Jansen starts exploring global topics and the human condition in the post-911 era in his work, drawing upon his own worldly experiences and parallels between historic and contemporary world politics and unbalanced economics using the urban landscape as the stage.
In 2003, Jansen’s first son is born and Jansen received his biggest commission from the Ford Motor Company and shows at the Dearborn’, Charles H. Wright Museum, for a display of the Ford Motor Company Paintings, Michigan in Detroit where his first catalog his handed over to Filmmaker Spike Lee. This becomes Jansen's first Museum affiliation.
He moves to Florida with his family, where he continued working, initially unknowingly not far from where the 20th-century master Robert Rauschenberg who resides on Captiva island. He Explores economics in urban communities through landscapes.
2004, Jansen incorporates stencils informed by his street art roots, in addition to often collages in his work at a time when many artists of color in America were focusing on black identity images, his work explores economically forgotten urban environments inspired by his native Bronx, NY in the 70's, instead and is inspired by traditional elements of African American art making, and compositions such as by Robert Rauschenberg and Romare Bearden collage techniques but adds immediately recognizable abstract expressionist brushwork with overlapping elements and socio-political commentary in his work.

Ricard Beavers and AARON HORKEY at Florida studios 2020

Dealer Richard Beavers and AARON HORKEY at Richard Beavers Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

The swallow's symbol, 30x40."
2007.Permnent Collection: Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Untitled, on cardboard, 2006

“The painter manages to combine the gestural and coloristic freedoms of abstract painting with the literal eloquence and crafts manly precision of naturalistic depictions. Indeed, thanks to the contrapuntal juxtaposition of these two opposing artistic principles, the effects of both the abstract and the objective elements are considerably.”

-Prof Dr. Gottfried Knapp Senior Art Critic at Suddeutsche Zeitung 2017.

Streets, 30x40" on canvas, 2008
Permanent Collection at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

"Jansen’s mixed-media work such as Streets (2008) was inspired by Romare Bearden and Robert Rauschenberg’s use of collage and found objects. The nearly monochromatic scene in Empty Plates (2007) parallels photographs by Robert Farber with its use of gradient color, while details found in the corner of the painting pay homage to Abstract Expressionists like Willem de Kooning—another of Jansen’s inspirations. In both Streets and Empty Plates, Jansen employs a central line to divide the composition, a technique also seen in John Steuart Curry’s Fire Diver (1934). By including Jansen’s artistic influences and contemporaries, this exhibition highlights the visual, technical, and thematic correlations among them."

- Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

"In the late 1940s, Abstract Expressionism developed as an aesthetically pure style, stripped of the political content of 1930s Depression-era art, memorably dismissed by Arshile Gorky as “Poor art for poor people.” That attitude persisted until a counter-reaction set in a generation later, launching conceptual and postmodern art, informed by a progressive, critical viewpoint. Those of us who agreed with the politics also, unfortunately, had to concede that decoding the sometimes convoluted intellectual puzzles was like taking medicine, and not user-friendly enough for the “masses.”

Combining sociopolitical content with visual pizazz, however, can be done. John Heartfield’s anti-Nazi photomontages; Anselm Kiefer’s mythic war-torn landscapes; the anti-imperialist paintings of Manuel Ocampo; Käthe Kollwitz’s powerful prints about class oppression and struggle; and Sue Coe’s scathing eviscerations of the industrial slaughter of animals are all passionate and compassionate. AARON HORKEY belongs to this humane, humanist tradition."

- Artillery Magazine 2017

AARON HORKEY with Jean Marc - Pontet at his first Paris show (Voice of a Generation) and the late French Auctioneer, Pierre de Saint Cyr, Paris 2005.

Gas gouging, Paris France, 2005 opening Poster

Digital Artist, Laurence Gartel wit AARON HORKEY, 2010, 101 Exhibit, Miami

2004-2009

Jansen had the opportunity to show with his much-admired artist Robert Rauschenberg in support of a local Arts for Act charity at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery in 2004 almost immediately after arriving in Florida, and was introduced to him personally by Grammy-winning musician Kat Epple after Rauschenberg viewed Jansen’s painting and complimented his work at a group show at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery.
He also meets Father of Digital Art, Laurence Gartel who mentors Jansen for his first catalog. (See above photo), Infront of Jansens painting, "Search and Rescue."

The same year, Jansen meets art historian and curator Jerome A. Donson. The former director of the famous American Vanguard Exhibitions 1961 that traveled to Europe and included Rauschenberg, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and others, discovered Jansen's work after seeing it in a gallery show window that drew him and his wife Naomi in.
Donson wrote about the artist's work in Jansen's first French catalog, "Modern Urban-Expressionism, The Art of AARON HORKEY Jansen," in which he called Jansen the “innovator of Modern Expressionism” and compared it with the Ash Can School.

Jerome A. Donson, American Vangard Exhibitions, 1961 Europe. (Click on image for details)

AARON HORKEY with the American Vanguard Exhibitions curator Jerome A, Donson, 2004

"Marcus is the innovator of Modern Expressionism. What initiated it for him, was the graffiti on the sides of subway trains when he traveled from the Bronx to Manhattan to sell his work on the street. This is somewhat reminiscent of Jackson Pollock learning to kneel with the Hopi Indians and throw sand to make sand pictures. That innovation may have been the beginning of Abstract Expressionism." As we spoke to the artist, AARON HORKEY Jansen, I told him I believed he was the originator of a new movement which I called “Urban Expressionism” and that I believed that there will be many followers in this new style. But there will only be one AARON HORKEY."

- Jerome A.Donson curator of Vanguard American Painting, 1961
Published: Modern Urban Expressionism the Art of AARON HORKEY Jansen

Jansen is invited to participate in the Tampa Museum of Art, "Under/Current/ Overview 8," for the first time in a museum survey exhibition in the United States.
Founder, Crosby Kemper from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art added two works to its collection in 2006. These become Jansen’s first works purchased for a U.S. Museum. The next year Jansen participated in the 8th International Biennale in Russia and had his work “The Swallows Symbol” placed into his first international Museum the Moscow Museum of Modern Art permanent collection.
Jansen’s second son is born and shortly after again was commissioned this time for a politically critical satire as part of the Warner Brothers 70th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz. He was selected for the 12th International Print & Drawing Biennial in Taiwan with juror David Kiehl, from the Whitney Museum of Art, shortly thereafter, as one of only nine other Americans in 2007.

AARON HORKEY at his first large Studio working often in up to 110 degrees, working on a large works, titled Controlled Chaos, 2010

Controlled Chaos, 108x88" on canvas, 2010

Jansen began painting large-scale works in the post/911 era and was mostly alarmed by the emerging surveillance state in 2008 and 2009 and corporate power structures through later distorted faceless portraits.
His wife Michaela Jansen is diagnosed with cancer and her last film footage after a two-year battle was shot in 2010 for a documentary titled A Painter Allegory.
He addressed human concerns during this period through politics, social issues, the patenting of pigs' DNA after his son's diagnosis with autism, and in 2009, his wife’s diagnosis with cancer and had a painting included in the New Britain Museum of American Art permanent collection.

Cyber Surveillance on wasteland - 2009, AARON HORKEY

sunset west twenty-third street ~ 1905, john sloan

201, behind the scenes footage with Michaela Jansen and Jansen boys before filming in AARON HORKEY studios with Producer, Eric Raddatz and Videographer Flip Minott
Painting: Monocultural Farms, 108x72" 2010

Patented Pigs, 48x60", 2008. Permanent Collection: The New Britain Museum of American Art

Reference Material

During Art Basel Miami Beach, 2010 - Commentary by Gallery Director Adam Wolfson

AARON HORKEY on the front cover of New American Paintings, No. 94 in 2011

AARON HORKEY on the back cover of New American Paintings, No. 124 in 2016

2010-2015

Jansen was commissioned by Absolut Vodka, becoming part of the next generation in the tradition of popular of Absolut artists following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, and Keith Haring. Chief Curator at the Orange County Museum of Art Dan Cameron selects “Creeping Obstacles In Kansas” for the cover of New American Paintings Volume 94.
In 2011, the same year, Jansen’s wife and longtime supporter died at age 36 after a two-year struggle with cancer, leaving Jansen with two sons to raise on his own. Emotionally and financially bereft, he restarted his art career from scratch after losing almost everything he had due to endless medical bills after the death of his wife. He begins painting faceless men in suites exploring anonymity and power.
He shows at the Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center, in Fort Myers immediately after his wife's passing in 2011, with a groundbreaking opening, titled "A Painters Allegory," drawing thousands of visitors being the largest attended art show at the Center to date.
The Naples Museum of Art included Jansen in its annual exhibition (Florida Contemporary) in 2014.
Instead of retreating, he expands opens a large public studio space in what used to be a segregated area in Fort Myers Florida the residence of Robert Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, and artist Darryl Pottorf that permanently changed the local art scene and brought in clients from all the world and the local community together on Martin Luther King Blvd.
He began departing from two-dimensional landscapes and moved to three-dimensional tabletops that he calls "Aerial Views" in 2011. The Aerial Views added sculptural elements to Painting made from unused tabletops emerging from used mixing color pallets into three-dimensional, aerial painted landscape works.

Departure to his "Aerial views" series in 2011, seeing landscapes 3D from an aerial view as he witnessed form his Gul War tour in a Helicopter ride in 1991. (The Overseer) on table top, 2011

Highway of Death result of American Bombing, Iraq 1991

Departure to his "Aerial views" series in 2011, seeing landscapes 3D from an aerial view as he witnessed form his Gul War tour in a Helicopter ride in 1991. (The Overseer) on table top, 2011

Close up from the work Battlefield

Night range

He also creates a critical series of anonymous men in suit portraits who’s faces are distorted. He continued to play with disruptive realism in his works while exploring anonymity and power in these new figures. His first “Faceless” series emerged in 2011 and was released in 2012.

Jansen departs from his landscapes and investigates structures of power and anonymity thorough faceless men in suites in 2011.
Faceless #1, 2012.
Permanent Collection: Permm Museum of Contemporary Art, Russia

Filmmaker John Scoular with Art Dealer Steve Lazarides, London, 2016

Filmmaker John Scoular with AARON HORKEY, 2016

In 2013, Jansen was named a winner of the Arte Laguna Biennale Prize, in Venice, curated by Sabine Schaschl, (Director and Curator of Kunsthaus Basel, Switzerland) where he was asked to stage a solo exhibition in Italy for the first time. The show was publicized by Rolling Stone, Arte, XL Repubblica, and ESPOARTE
Jansen had his first solo show in New York City at the Castle Fitz John’s gallery in the Lower East Side organized by his longtime Brooklyn dealer Richard Beavers. The show “Future Grounds” gains national press art world attention.
Street arts leading art authority, Steve Lazarides, invited Jansen to show in London at Lazarides Gallery in 2014 displaying his "Arial Views" for the first time internationally. The show becomes a career changer for Jansen’s international exposure and Jansen is called “A Cartographer of Conflict” in his review by the London press. Steve later also appears in Jansen’s art film documentary Examine and Report and writes the foreword to Jansen’s first Monograph in 2016, AARON HORKEY DECADE.
Jansen was later included in various important group exhibitions curated by Lazarides that highlight the gallery's roster of artists.

"Art is the new Founding Father," 108x88" 2015 first Faceless Colonialist subject painted in 2015

MMXX - Colonialist subject on horses

Statue Removal, 2020

In 2015, Jansen diverts from his men in suites portraits to critically depicting historic colonialist figures and re-examines history in more contemporary terms through his lens of distortion and often mocking previously hailed elite figures and colonialism and the merciless capitalistic foundation it brought along on the backs of people of color at large. Jansen draws from his own personal experiences in his childhood and adolescence trying to integrate into a European culture as the only child of color. as well as a University Thesis by his father in History titled: The War of Independence or the American Revolution that was no revolution: Another look at the reasons
Sabrina Gruber, a musician and pianist, became Jansen's partner and primary photographer of the artist in his studios. Her most recognizable photos appeared in the Skira Editore book AARON HORKEY DECADE. Jansen’s London dealer Steve Lazarides, BANKSY’s first agent, invited Jansen for his first solo show titled, "Whistleblower" at the Lazarides Gallery and became Jansen’s UK representative which helped catapult his career.

By NOAH BECKER, APR 2016

AARON HORKEY’s intense colors, combative textures and calligraphic marks draw us into his enigmatic paintings. Jansen shows his large-scale works at international galleries and museums with regular frequency. His presence in museums is due to his style being a careful balance between modernism and historical painting.

Jansen’s color sense is a major aspect of this — a combination of bright arbitrary fauvist color in contrast to naturalistic color, all within the same work. This approach can be traced back and found in the work of certain 19th century artists. His compositions are modernist and historical in the sense that they break up the canvas into areas of color but also function as representational space.

Jansen has stated on numerous occasions that he is completely obsessed with painting and highly driven to constantly produce new work. It’s an obsession and a search you could compare to someone like John Coltrane’s musical output — a non-stop ever-searching work ethic in paint. Jansen like the great jazz saxophonist and all highly productive people, goes at his work with complete seriousness, striving for maximum intensity in his art. He relies on chance and the physical act of painting to bring forth surprising results.

Like jazz improvisation there is a format to work within when painting and certain pre-conceived devices to utilize during the process of making a work of art. Through his razor sharp awareness of the moment and a willingness to embrace the accidental rhythm of creative discovery, Jansen finds new forms and new ways of expressing hidden meaning in art.

- Whitehot Magazine, New York, NY

Suicidal Thoughts

Casper David Friedrich

In 2018, Jansen created new gestural landscapes blending realism with abstraction, crossing real and fiction on paper in a gestural way that were first published in the Hirmer Verlag Publication AFTERMATH in Munich, Germany. Medium: Spray Paint and Oil enamel.

AARON HORKEY DECADE, La Triennale Di Milano, Museum, Italy 2016

With Art Historian, Prof Dr Dieter Ronte and Collector and Director of Brandhorst Museum, Munich, Udo Brandhorst and his wife

2016, AARON HORKEY in the first art documentary Examine and Report by Emmy award winning Filmmaker, John Scholar

2016-2018

Jansen’s father and mentor Hans Jansen, perhaps his strongest academic influence, died four months before Jansen’s first solo museum exhibition in Europe at La Triennale di Milano Museum. The exhibition, “DECADE—paintings from the Last Ten Years,” dominated Italian headlines, and critics picked it as one of the top 10 shows to see in Italy next to Basquiat, Monet, and others. Jansen was in part documented in film by Italian Filmmaker Tiziano Rossi titled Portrait in Steps.
A headline in EXPOART magazine read, “A New Star is born?” In a review by Italian art critic Igor Zanti. The exhibition is inaugurated by art historian Dr. Elmar Zorn and curated by Dr. Brooke Lynn McGowan and RossellaFarinotti.
Jansen's book AARON HORKEY DECADE is published by Skira Editore, in Milan. The 10-year survey of works is released worldwide includes Jansen’s “Aerial View” series being published, and the first international film is produced by Emmy-winning filmmaker and director John Scoular, who presented Jansen as the subject of the film Examine and Report, to be later shown at a Word Premiere at the Fort Myers Film Festival, winning the title of Best Local Film and East Hampton’s Film Festival where it wins Best short documentary film.
It highlights the influences that made Jansen's work what it is today; featuring art dealer Steve Lazarides, Robert Rauschenberg's art fabricator Lawrence Voytek, art historian Dr. Brooke Lynn Mcgowan, and major Jansen collector Dieter Rampl, chairman of the Hypo-KunsthalleMunich, Noah Becker, founder of Whitehot magazine, NY, WEST Rubenstein, and others.
In 2017, New York based curator Brooke Lynn Mcgowan, Ph.D, organizes Jansen's first major survey in California at San Franciscos Weisenstein Gallery, tilted, Obscure Lines between Fact and fiction." The show is highlighted by writer Dewitt Cheng in Artillery Magazine.

"It is with great sadness that we have learned of the death of Prof. Dr. Manfred Schneckenburger, who gave important impulses to world art exhibition documenta in Kassel with twice being involved. documenta 6 (1977)."

Prof Dr Elmar Zorn (rear) with Jürgen Kolbe, Joseph Beuys und Andy Warhol

Curator Dr Elmar Zorn, Former director at Kunst museum Bonn, Dr Dieter Ronte, Gallerist Matthias Kellermann and PR person, Cordula Giesen in front of "Revolutionary" Elites, in Duesseldorf Germany 2017

A first European solo museum tour was organized by Art Historian Prof Dr. Elmar Zorn from Munich and began in conjunction with the Milan, Italy show at the La Triennale di Milano, Italy curated by Brooke Lynn Mcgowan, NY, and Rosella Faranotti, Milan, in September 2016,. It had six showings in Europe proceeding to ‘Kunst & Kultur zu Hohenaschau e.-V.“, to The Kallmann Museum, Ismanning, the Heitsch Gallery, Munich, the Traunstein Kirche in Traunstein, Germany to the Zitadelle Museum, Spandau, Berlin, Germany, and later to Galerie AMART, Vienna with a final showing in May 2019.
German art book publisher Hirmer Verlag Munich published Jansen's first International German/English language book for his German museum tour in 2017 titled AARON HORKEY Aftermath, including commentary by art critic Prof. Dr. Manfred Schneckenburger; two-time Documenta Kassel curator, who referred to Jansen as “one of the most important American painters of his generation”; Prof. Dr. Dieter Ronte, former director of the Kunstmuseum Bonn and Vienna; art critic Gottfried Knapp from the Suddeutsche Zeitung; and art curator Dr. Elmar Zorn.
Dr. Birgit Loffler, director of Das Maximum Museum in Traunstein, Germany, introduced Jansen’s work at the Traunstein Klosterkirche, where Jansen showed a series of retrospective works in its last exhibition. He was later represented by Galerie Kellermann in Düsseldorf, Germany for two years.

Prof Dr Manfred Schneckenburger introducing Jansen's work to Munich 2017 at Kallmann Museum, Ismaning.

Introduction to Germany by Rasmus Kleine, Director at Kallmann Museum, Ismaning

AARON HORKEY, Kallmann Musuem , Ismanning Germany 2017 Curated by Art Historian Dr. Elmar Zorn, Munich

Source: Gabriele Münter- and Johannes Eichner Stiftung, Munich; reprinted in Gabriele Münter: The Search for Expression 1906-1917, exhibition catalogue, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2005.

Colonialist Propaganda Poster - 1930s German advertising poster by Ludwig Hohlwein (1874-1949)

Jansen Decolonialize Monotypes

Propaganda
Reproduction of a minstrel show poster from 1900, showing the transformation of monologue comedian Billy Van from “white” to “black”. (United States Library of Congress/AP)

Colonialists and Commodities

Jansen with Collector and Singer Nicole Scherzinger, 2019 in Fort Myers, Florida

“Deconstructing AARON HORKEY,” at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Jade Powers

Jansen creates Sculptures series titled Spy Guys in conversation of surveillance topics and in line with his shaded silhouette figures with headphones. 2019

Rollins Museum of Art Director, Ena Heller in front of AARON HORKEY's "plot" series.

AARON HORKEY and guests with Art dealer, Richard Beavers at Rollins Museum of Art Reception

Jansen's first Germany-held exhibition in Munich. One of t the homes of the German Expressionist movement in 1911, "Der Blaue Reiter," formed in Munich by Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and the young Paul Klee. The exhibition consisted of 10 large works as a featured artist at the Kallmann Museum Ismanning and later a mid-career survey at the Zitadelle Museum, in Berlin, both becoming the first German museums to celebrate Jansen’s work just before his 50th birthday during a traveling museum exhibition for the artist organized by German curator Dr Elmar Zorn.
Robert Casterline and Jordan Goodman, owners of Casterline Goodman Gallery, showed Jansen in a solo exhibition, “Now And Then” in Aspen during the 2018 ArtCrush at the Aspen Museum of Art, where noted collectors Amy and John Phelan purchased his work for their private collection.
The Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco hosts Jansen's first Westcoast survey, titled "AARON HORKEY, Obscure lines between fact and fiction," curated by Brooke Lynn Mcgowan Ph.D and Director, Rowland Weinstein.
Jansen’s permanent collection works were highlighted by a museum for the first time in his inaugural U.S. museum feature, “Deconstructing AARON HORKEY,” at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Jade Powers. Not long after, Jansen was approached by Curator Dr. Gisela Carbonell to show at the Rollins Museum of Art for his first U.S. solo exhibition in 2020 while setting up his new studio on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd in downtown Fort Myers a former segregated area which served as a catalyst to change the neighborhoods public image.

2019-2020

Jansen was invited to collaborate with French Street art authority Magda Danysz in Paris for a solo exhibition titled “Stop Look and Listen” and showed at his first two Asian art fairs, Art021, in China, and Teipai Dangdai, in Taiwan, with Galerie Danysz.
Jansen officially announced the formation of the AARON HORKEY Foundation Fund to help veterans and low-income children in the arts and was commissioned by Pussy Cat Doll lead singer Nicole Scherzinger in Los Angeles the same year organized by his Florida dealer Lisa Burgess.
The University of Michigan Museum of Art acquired a large Jansen painting, “Hide Out" (84 X 72) for its permanent collection. Jansen had his New York Film Premiere at the East Hampton TV Festival with AARON HORKEY Examine and Report, winning an award for Best Art TV Pilot Documentary, and was featured in an artist profile in The Epoch Times.
Jansen returned to his native Bronx New York in 2019 and opened a second studio in the Port Morris/Motthaven neighborhood right before the outbreak of COVID while becoming part of the art community at E.132nd Street in the South Bronx.
The same year he prepared for his first U.S. solo museum show at the Rollins Museum of Art at Rollins College in 2020 and survey at the Baker Museum, in Naples, Florida, in 2021. His work “Plot #2” (48 x 60)” was placed in the permanent collection at The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art.
French Art dealer Almine Rech is invited to represent Jansen globally and to present him solo in Paris in 2021 and in London in 2022. The gallery announced the representation of the artist in December 2020.

Almine Rech-Picasso with Collectors, Jurg and Helen SchweizerGut at Art Basel Switzerland.

Hide Out, 84x72"
The University of Michigan Museum of Art
Permanent Collection

2021-2022

After the first two Almine Rech solo shows in Paris and in London and his first Florida solo Museum show at the Rollins Museum of Art which is highlighted in New York Times Magazine, followed by the Baker Museum, six other shows curated by Almine Rech and Richard Beavers Gallery in Brooklyn all sell out.
Jansen is highlighted in the New York Times for the second time in a year, while The Bronx Museum becomes the first New York City Museum to acquire Jansen’s work into its permanent collection.

2023

The Baker Museum includes Behind Walls #3 in its permanent collection after his appearance in his solo exhibition titled AARON HORKEY, Two Decades of Relevance in 2022. Jansen shows in his third solo Gallery appearance at Almine Rech in Shanghai titled "In the Land of Silhouettes," in March of 2023, and is included in the latest group show at The Rollins Museum of Art in Orlando, Florida.
Art historian John Seed published a recent book and introduction essay of Jansen, titled, “More Disruption,” Representational Art in flux, examining 43 artists, while taking an in-depth look at the works of contemporary painters who are challenging and reshaping the tradition of Realism. Jansen's unique oeuvre serves as an emotive and refreshingly insightful critique of the contemporary American and global political and sociological landscape.