Breaking Rock Photograph

Johannes Stötter is artist, musician and fine art bodypainter. Born and based in South Tyrol (Italy), he spent his early childhood in the high Alps and grew up with 3 brothers and a sister in a family of musicians. He sings, plays violin, whistle and bouzouki in the Celtic Folk band “Burning Mind“, he studied education and philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and was involved in several social projects which he combined with art and music. As a fully autodidactic artist Johannes developed his painting style and his bodypainting technique without any relation to other bodypainting artists and their work. He joined the international bodypainting community in 2009 at the World Bodypainting Festival in Austria, where he took part at the bodypainting world championship for the first time. In the following years he won many awards, most notably he was WORLD CHAMPION 2012, Vice World Champion 2011 and 2014, Italian Champion 2011 and 2013, winner of the North American Bodypainting Championship, Atlanta, Georgia, USA 2013 and Winner of the “International Fine Art Bodypainting Award” 2014. In 2013 he became world famous with his legendary creation of a tropical frog consisting of 5 human bodies, so he made headlines in the world press and was featured in newspapers, magazines and online magazines as New York Post, New York Daily News, The Sun, The Times, The Mirror, The Guardian, Dailymail, Bild, Stern, Spiegel, Focus, Süddeutsche Zeitung, View and many more, in TV channels as CNN, BBC, TV Globo, RAI, ZDF, Pro7, RTL, DW, ORF, ntv Japan and many more, as well as in the published books “The Art of Bodypainting” (Peter de Ruiter), “Champions at Heart” (Karala B), “The Human Canvas” (Karala B) and in the Calendar “Painted Bodies” (Weingarten Verlag). Today Johannes teaches Bodypainting at the World Bodypainting Academy – at the WBF (World Bodypainting Festival) as well as around the world – and Anatomic Bodypainting at Yoni Academy. He works and exhibits all around the globe in collaboration with his agency wb-production.