Markus Linnenbrink
The colours emerge from the depth of the image
One of the great stories of the modern painting is about the liberation of the colour from the object represented, and the development of its own materiality. This story had its heyday in Europe in the mid-20th century. Back then, Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier and Emil Schumacher mixed colours with sand, plaster and other compact materials, and in USA, Jackson Pollock and Morris Louis let the paint drip onto and run down the canvas.
Markus Linnenbrink still finds new facets in the colour as a material even in today's digital age. With the colourful luminosity of his images, the Dortmund-born artist, who has been living in New York for several years, is closer to the American tradition while at the same time, his approach follows the European experimentation with materials. What the artist applies to different types of panels, primarily wood, is in fact neither oil nor paint. He uses special pigments mixed with epoxy resin or wax, thus creating a more or less liquid substance that runs over the surface in straight or amorphous fields. Thus, Linnenbrink elicits from the colour as matter and material a dazzling variety of individual colours, which he can achieve through different admixtures.
One of the great stories of the modern painting is about the liberation of the colour from the object represented, and the development of its own materiality. This story had its heyday in Europe in the mid-20th century. Back then, Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier and Emil Schumacher mixed colours with sand, plaster and other compact materials, and in USA, Jackson Pollock and Morris Louis let the paint drip onto and run down the canvas.
Markus Linnenbrink still finds new facets in the colour as a material even in today's digital age. With the colourful luminosity of his images, the Dortmund-born artist, who has been living in New York for several years, is closer to the American tradition while at the same time, his approach follows the European experimentation with materials. What the artist applies to different types of panels, primarily wood, is in fact neither oil nor paint. He uses special pigments mixed with epoxy resin or wax, thus creating a more or less liquid substance that runs over the surface in straight or amorphous fields. Thus, Linnenbrink elicits from the colour as matter and material a dazzling variety of individual colours, which he can achieve through different admixtures.