Albert Oehlen - New Paintings, 2019 HK GG

Oehlen approaches painting as a perceptual challenge, a puzzle set within the unpredictable arena of the picture plane. He often imposes specific rules or limitations on his work-keeping to a certain palette or beginning with a straight line-as a way to interrogate the infinite possibilities that the act of painting presents. By continuously flipping between chaos and control, he opens up new relationships between pictorial space, colour, and gesture. In these new paintings, Oehlen emphasizes the importance of spontaneity within his artistic method. Diverging from his recent works created with oil or lacquer on aluminium or the aluminium composite Dibond, Oehlen's decision to use watercolour in this series marks a stylistic return to his hazy, blended, almost impressionistic oil paintings dating from 2016 and earlier.