Jochen Mühlenbrink
Jochen Mühlenbrink studied at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf and graduated in 2007 under the famous painter Markus Lüpertz. In 2010 he won the F?rderpreis für Malerei der OEVO and in 2012 the Internationalen Bergischen Kunstpreis. In the Netherlands he is affiliated with the Gerhard Hofland Gallery in Amsterdam.
Jochen Mühlenbrink’s paintings play a visual game with onlookers. He initially started by painting exact replicas of the backs of paintings. Although Mühlenbrink also makes installations and sculptures, this trompe l’oeil effect became the key to his work. This painting technique was much used during the Golden Age and demands great knowledge of materials.
Mühlenbrink uses trompe l’oeil to emphasise relationships between abstraction and figuration. This allows him to concentrate on the material itself and he balances on the boundary between representation and illusion. What is real and what is deception? This leads to a continual field of tension between presence and absence, truth and deceit, fabrication and reality.