Lena Kaapke

Lena Kaapke, born in 1989 in Flensburg, is a young conceptual artist based in Kiel, Germany. She graduated in Fine Art and Ceramics in 2015. After that, she finished a three years research project about “the color red in ceramic technologies.” Since 2015 her work has been shown in many national and international exhibitions. Her work is currently on show at the Arte Laguna Prize in the Arsenale North in Venice (Italy) and in the 62 Premio Faenza exhibition at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza (Italy).

Kaapke’s work was awarded the Artistic Prize of the State of Schleswig-Holstein (2016), the Ceramics Prize of the Frechener Kulturstiftung (2017), the State Prize of the Professional Association of Plastic and Graphic Arts of Schleswig-Holstein (2019), the Hessian State Prize for German Arts and Crafts (promotion award, 2021), the European honorary of the Europa Union Leverkusen (2021), the BKV Prize for Young Applied Art (2. Prize, 2022), the Vulnerable Art Award of the Diözese Rottenburg (2. Prize) and the Culture Award of the city of Kiel (promotion award). Since this year, she has been represented in the Federal Collection of Contemporary Art of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Her projects connect interdisciplinary questions and topics, which always grow from personal interests, observations, and experiences, which she then likes to explore artistically. Thus, Kaapke’s work is always formed by installation surveys and acquirements. Kaapke’s highly conceptual installations echo the multitude of possibilities offered by traditional ceramic processes while simultaneously questioning the role of ceramics within contemporary art.

Visit Lena Kaapke’s website and Instagram page.