Emerging Artists

Contrasting Perspectives

Marc Truckenbrodt’s paintings are created in an elaborate manner, layer by layer, in a linear painting process in which he works from light to dark. It also means that there is no point of return. In spite of this, there is no hint of hesitation. Due to the development of these paintings and the consistency in the use of color, it actually makes a difference from which distance you look at them and which light they are exposed to. Accordingly, one color or another will emerge more prominently. Where a figure could only just be discerned, the painting reverts to a state of sheer brushstrokes.

The figures that are formed by the countless brushstrokes, scenes and spaces, pose the universal questions of humanity. It is no coincidence that they often resemble mythical figures, deities or heroes. Friendship, the spirit of exploration and identity are just some of the themes tackled here. And just as with the great myths, Marc Truckenbrodt’s works also reflect a certain ambivalence. As he puts it, he only paints what he himself does not yet fully understand.

Marc Truckenbrodt is originally from Jena and now lives in Hamburg, after stints in Austria and China.

Olivia Erlanger has a lot of hard facts in the back of her mind, but her true interest lies beyond them. Her work gravitates towards the periphery; that ambiguous space where boundaries blur and opposites intermingle. In order to explore this, she examines the semiotics of a very real and symbolic environment: American suburbia.

Since World War II, the architecture, social structures, aesthetics and myths of the suburbs have captured the imagination of artists and the public alike. Erlanger draws on these themes, interjecting them with unexpected twists. Household objects and appliances that are part of suburban life often come to life in her works-they become eerie, sentient beings or collide with surreal, otherworldly environments. This anthropomorphism can be both unsettling and darkly humorous, as non-human objects assume human traits.

Other pieces veer towards abstraction, manipulating the scale of domestic imagery to either planetary proportions or miniature dimensions. Erlanger’s versatility spans across a range of media, including sculpture, installation, performance, film, and dramatic literature. Each medium presents a particular challenge, offering audiences distinct ways to engage with her ideas.

Currently based in New York, Olivia Erlanger continues to navigate the intersections between the familiar and the uncanny, drawing us into her imaginative explorations of the spaces we inhabit—both real and imagined.

The endeavor to depict reality as it is perceived has long been at the core of painters’ work. Yet in today’s world, reality itself is infiltrated and reshaped by its representations, blurring the boundaries between the real and the image. Lithuanian painter Rūtė Merk, currently based in Berlin, explores the hybrid realm that emerges from this collision. Her works seem strangely familiar and conjure up a world where we encounter caffé lattes, French macarons and friends, portrayed in a mixture of sharp, hard-edged precision and soft, blurred contours.

The mundane acts like a gravitational force in her paintings, anchoring them in the tangible and preventing them from drifting off into endless iterations of imaginary worlds. These details reassure us of the reality we perceive. After all, what would we do without a latte to cling to?

Simultaneously, the disjointed nature of the paintings’ components, assembled as if in the vacuum of Photoshop, reveals an unsettling rootlessness. The fragments suggest an origin outside of traditional contexts, echoing the placeless and timeless nature of globalized culture. Nevertheless, Rūtė Merk masterfully reconciles these contradictions, allowing them to coexist in a single captivating painting.