Born in 1954 in Krnov, Czech Republic ,Jiri Georg Dokoupil lives and works between Berlin, Prague, Madrid, Gran Canaria, Rio de Janeiro, and Plovdiv. The artist completed his master’s degree at the Cologne Academy of Fine Arts in 1976 and also studied at the University of Frankfurt and the Cooper Union in New York in the late 1970s. He served as a visiting professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts from 1983 to 1984, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 1989, and at the Kassel Gesamtschule from 1994 to 1995.

Dokoupil, one of the leading figures of the German Junge Wilde (Young Wild Ones) movement that emerged in the late 1970s, developed a conceptually grounded and radically innovative approach to painting. Rather than confining his artistic practice to a single style, he developed a wide variety of painting techniques and forms of expression. In his “Soap Bubble Paintings” series—among the artist’s most original works—he pops soap bubbles filled with pigment on the canvas surface, creating vibrant and dynamic layers of color that constantly shift in response to light. In addition, the painting techniques he has developed using unconventional materials such as soot, car tires, and bubble wrap constitute an important part of his body of work. In addition to painting, he also creates sculptures, prints, and works on paper.

Dokoupil’s major solo exhibitions include those held at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg in Germany in 2005, the Palacio de Velázquez in Spain in 2000, and the Château de Chenonceau in France in 1999. The artist participated in the Venice Biennale and documenta 8 in 1987, and was awarded the Lovis Corinth Prize in 2012.

The artist is represented in several prominent public collections worldwide, including Musée national d’Art moderne Centre Pompidou in France; Sammlung Ludwig, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Sammlung Metzger, Museum am Ostwall, Museum Folkwang, Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar, Neues Museum and Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart in Germany; Horsens Kunstmuseum in Denmark; The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea; Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Spain; Kunsthaus Zurich in Switzerland; and Sonnabend Collection, Hammer Museum in the USA.