About Ivan Gette

Born in Siberia, I came to Germany at seven without speaking German. Hip hop gave me a way in, through skateboarding, and then through graffiti.

Long before I could hold a conversation, I could paint my name on a wall. That culture was built on skill and exchange. Each one teach one. Nobody asked where you came from. What mattered was what you brought: your style, your eye, mutual respect and what you gave back to the culture.

That ethic runs through everything I have built since, including Notagallery, which I founded in Berlin in 2022 – vacant buildings turned into rooms where more than 500 artists from all over the world have shown and worked, across several locations.

I work through movement and intuition, building acrylic, spray paint, ink and pigment on raw canvas in layers until the surface holds the state it was made in. There is no plan and no second version. Each painting records a single passage of time: a place, an encounter, a moment that shifted something and will not return.