MARKUS ÖEHLEN (Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, 1956). "Securitator". 2005. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated on the back. With Juana de Aizpuru gallery label on the back. Measurements: 250 x 200 cm: 253 x 203 cm (frame). In paintings like this one, Markus Öehlen tests our ability to see behind the images, transcending the surface reading to which visual culture throws us. Human figures and other more ambiguous, somewhat ominous ones, are superimposed on planes of color and different textures, suggesting infinite layers of reading and interpretation. The plastic richness of this work results from the in-depth study of different styles, from the optical experimentation of kinetic art added to the legacy of abstract expressionism and oneiric automatism. He seems to intersperse mechanical processes with spontaneous pictorial stains. And yet, he only uses the oil technique. Oehlen's elaborate treatment of surfaces produces a magnetic effect by replacing banal reality with complex representation. 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.