Markus Öehlen

MARKUS ÖEHLEN (Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, 1956).
"11,11,11", 2005.
Oil on canvas.
Work exhibited at Art Basel, 2016, by the hand of Juana de Aizpuru gallery.
Presents label on the back of the Juana de Aizpuru Gallery (Madrid).
Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 250 x 200 cm; 253 x 203 cm (frame).
Markus Oehlen's painting "11, 11, 11" is a striking example of the characteristic approach of the German artist, whose work has consistently challenged the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, between pictorial gesture and digital logic. In this work, Oehlen presents a visually dense and saturated composition, in which biomorphic forms, digital textures, linear wefts and color stains coexist in a dizzying and fragmented pictorial space. The painting simultaneously refers to microscopic organisms, technical diagrams and children's drawings, fused in a chaotic collage that seems guided as much by intuition as by an algorithm.
The use of repetitive patterns and chromatic modulations with optical effect, such as the wavy strokes in the background or the superimposed linear textures, suggests an influence of digital languages, but Oehlen does not reproduce them literally, but submits them to a profoundly material and tactile pictorial logic. There is a constant tension between the painter's hand and the software aesthetic.
Markus Öehlen is a German visual artist who works with painting, sculpture and music. In the 1970s and 1980s he was a founding member of the influential neo-expressionist art movement Neue Wilde in Düsseldorf together with Martin Kippenberger, Markus Lüpertz and his brother Albert Oehlen. Oehlen studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Alfonso Hüppi). He uses a punk style that opposes minimalism. The aim was to attack the nature of minimalism with a style of painting that is based on instinct and gesturally emphasizes the wild, spontaneous, obsessive and sensual. Oehlen has continuously developed his work, in parallel with painting, sculpture and musical projects. His new works are increasingly inspired by the perceptual experiments of Op Art, with printed image interferences occurring in grid-like patterns above and below the image layers. Markus Oehlen's complex, layered images are composed of a plethora of found images, shapes and distorted pictorial elements that, taken out of their previous context, take on new function and meaning. By rearranging the individual compositional elements of the canvases in the context of the art, Oehlen creates surreal still lifes that were not originally intended for it, playing with the notion of randomness and suggesting strange narratives. The images on large canvases convince with their radical approach to painting. He participated in the group exhibition Von hier aus - Zwei Monate neue deutsche Kunst in Düsseldorf in 1984. In 1993 he exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York: "Projects 39"- with Georg Herold. In addition, Oehlen was a founding member of the bands Mittagspause, Fehlfarben, Flying Klassenfeind, Vielleichtors and Van Oehlen. Since 2002, he has been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.