Markus Oehlen artworks and editions

Markus Oehlen is a contemporary artist from Germany. Oehlen is assigned to the art movement of the so-called "Neue Wilde" (New Wild Ones), who caused an appearance in Austria and Germany since the 1980s with their confident and carefree painting. Oehlen was born in 1956 as the younger brother of the artist Albert Oehlen in Krefeld, where he still lives and works.

Since the early 1980s, Oehlen creates large-scale figurative artworks and editions in gestural-expressive painting style. Characteristic of his work is the condensed layering and compilation of various motifs, shapes and colors. His collage-like visual language consists of chaotically layered patterns as well as grids and integrates elements of pop culture such as comic strips. The artist applies the intensely bright colors impasto to the canvas. Despite their abstract style, his paintings have a three-dimensional effect and suggest space and figurativeness to the viewer. In addition to painting, Oehlen creates genre-breaking sculptures of organically curved forms, in which he incorporates technical devices.

As a representative of the "Neue Wilde" (New Wild Ones), his artworks and editions were commentaries on the standardized value standards of the bourgeoisie and sought to dismantle traditional art concepts of the time. Since the late 1970s, the artist's works have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad.