My pictures tell stories. The obvious ones and the hidden ones. I want that one can smile and think about a picture. Only then is it told for me.

Joerg Crone, born in Münster in 1967, grew up in the Sauerland region. He began oil painting at the age of 15, first exhibitions in small galleries followed. After school, he worked in a gallery and design agency. Formative was an exhibition there with drawings by Joseph Beuys, „Man, could he draw!“ To study with a focus on illustration and painting, he returned to Münster, later to Düsseldorf. Further stations were Frankfurt and Hamburg, where he works as a freelance illustrator, creative director in international advertising agencies and is still self-employed today.During his career he received national and international awards. In addition to his full-time occupation with design, he dealt with various thematic complexes in mostly large-format oil paintings. One of the themes were provocative depictions of angels, which received media attention on television and were exhibited on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. Later, various experimental oil techniques and motif series on contemporary themes followed. Digitality, love, war and peace and the absurdity of the everyday are reflected in his motifs. Never with a raised forefinger, but ironically or humorously, always with a wink.

In 2021, the first Monkey portraits are created as part of a CD production for his own band. The possibilities of storytelling are fascinating, the resonance motivating. Expressively realistic paintings, a crossover of classical painting and pop art. Again, the motifs reflect the themes of our time: warriors and drunkards, clowns and philosophers, heroes and tyrants. The ’soulmates‘ appear cheerful at first glance, but reveal themselves to be prisoners of their motifs. This discrepancy creates an aura of melancholy. The Monkeys are dark, serious and silent. They laugh and they don’t shout. And they ask more questions than they give answers: „What if ? Why? And why not?“