Evoking the stripe paintings of Morris Louis and Gene Davis, Markus Linnenbrink creates decadently colorful drip paintings and striped room-size environments. Color and process are Linnenbrink’s primary concerns; he builds his compositions using layer upon layer of carefully controlled drips in saturated, glossy colors. Although comprised of precisely rendered stripes, Linnenbrink’s works, rife with drips, resin pools, and tactile surfaces, suggest the spontaneity of a more intuitive process, a sense he heightens with occasional subtle interruptions.
Linnenbrink was born in Germany in 1961. He attended Gesamthochschule in Kassel as well as the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include “too early and always and all over again” at Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco, CA; “so here’s what you gonna do” at ft-contemporary in Berlin; “come a little closer” at Kong Tomlinson Contemporary in New York, NY and “BIGOUTREAGEOUSSOUND” at Galerie MaxEstella in Madrid. Recent group exhibitions include “Local Color” at the San Jose Museum of Art in San Jose, CA; “ROY G BIV” at Waterhouse&Dodd in New York, NY, “out of the office,” at Kunstmuseum Bochum in Germany; “im raum nichts als farbe sehen,” at Galerie Oqbo in Berlin and the 2010 Beijing Biennial, among others.
His work is included in the permanent collections of The Hague Ministry of Culture, the Hague, Netherlands; Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA; Harvard College, Cambridge, MA; the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; Museum Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; UCLA’s Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA and the West Collection, Oaks, PA, among others.