Cologne-based Saile’s work convenes the space of painting, in a subtle interplay between the space where it is situated, the space it represents and the space it constructs in dialogue with architecture. Beyond the in-situ and the context, it is an investigation into painting in volume, the depth of the surface, and the extension of this practice into a performative field of action.

Broken colors, diluted in oil with turpentine, applied in numerous layers on a small-format wooden background – Markus Sailes works are intangible, fleeting, abstract, whereby a painterly gesture may develop figuratively without ever becoming concrete. The gestural structures in the pictures function as agents who, through their interrelated movements, open up interrelationships of space and time.

Markus Saile was born in Stuttgart in 1981. He lives and works in Cologne. Recent institutional shows include the solo exhibition "separate | related" at NAK - Neuer Aachener Kunstverein and the group exhibition "Jetzt! Junge Malerei in Deutschland" at Museum Gunzenhauser of the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Museum Wiesbaden, Kunstmuseum Bonn and Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

photo: Alwin Lay