Johannes is a calligrapher and urban artist from Berlin. His first real encounter with calligraphy came in 2015, when he watched a video of Frank Ortmann designing a CD cover – and from that moment on, he was hooked. He began writing frenetically, and it quickly became clear that he had a deep love for blackletter scripts.

Living in Berlin, the connection to urban art was almost inevitable. The city has plenty of legal walls, and the urban art scene here is huge and incredibly welcoming. Since calligraphy – at least broad-nib calligraphy – is easy to scale up, Johannes soon started writing on walls. He loves the contrast between the clean, precise strokes on handmade paper and going wild on a huge wall with paint splattering everywhere. Both forms of calligraphy absolutely fascinate him.

A quick note on his artist name, Parisurteil: Johannes wishes no harm to the city of Paris – the name refers to the Greek myth in which the Trojan prince Paris is asked to choose the most beautiful goddess. For his choice he not only wins Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, but also brings about the downfall of Troy. Johannes found it fitting to use this as an allegory for the creation and perception of art: every judgment (or opinion) has multiple facets and consequences – both the judgment of an artwork and the artwork itself. Every work of art is, in its own way, a judgment on the world.