Artist Statement
Book – Why Paintings Work, by Jurriaan Benschop – (English) 2023
“Sometimes, the painter calls his work ‘apocalyptic’, for instance when dark skies loom over fields like the canvas of a tent and the feeling of nature turns into a vision of doom. He has come to experience life itself as apocalyptic as well; a result of the increase in natural disasters and the poisoned presidential elections in his native country. As a painter, you can’t change that, but you can offer something different: a landscape that knows evil, yet brings about poetry. and shadow. At the same time, the artist seems bent on identifying an underlying principle, something that propels nature, that makes it swish, burst open and bend over. It is not just a matter of bowing before the wind but a more fundamental, less tangible force.”
Among the artists featured in this book are: Nikos Aslanidis, David Benforado, Louise Bonnet, Glenn Brown, Maria Capelo, Peter Doig, Béatrice Dreux, Helmut Federle, Beverly Fishman, Elisabeth Frieberg, Victoria Gitman, Veronika Hilger, Martha Jungwirth, Andreas Ragnar Kassapis, Kristi Kongi, Mark Lammert, Michael Markwick, Kerry James Marshall, Rezi van Lankveld, Lara de Moor, Matthew Metzger, Marc Mulders, Kaido Ole, Jorge Queiroz, Fiona Rae, Daniel Richter, Jessica Stockholder, Marc Trujillo, Anna Tuori, Matthias Weischer, Paula Zarina-Zemane and Gerlind Zeilner.
BOOK – WAAROM EEN SCHILDERIJ WERKT by Jurriaan Benschop (Dutch)2022
In Waarom een schilderij werkt onderzoekt Jurriaan Benschop de veelvormige schilderkunst van onze huidige tijd. Hij introduceert het werk van tientallen schilders, bespreekt de thema’s die in het werk te vinden zijn en stelt daarbij steeds de vraag: Waarom werkt dit schilderij? Op wat voor manier heeft het betekenis en kan het overtuigen? Dit brengt hem bij zowel zichtbare aspecten van schilderkunst, zoals beeldmotief en de manier van schilderen, als bij wat onzichtbaar achter het doek ligt: de drijfveren, het wereldbeeld en de culturele achtergrond van de kunstenaar.
Onder de kunstenaars die in dit boek aan bod komen zijn: Nikos Aslanidis, David Benforado, Louise Bonnet, Glenn Brown, Maria Capelo, Peter Doig, Béatrice Dreux, Helmut Federle, Beverly Fishman, Elisabeth Frieberg, Victoria Gitman, Veronika Hilger, Martha Jungwirth, Andreas Ragnar Kassapis, Kristi Kongi, Mark Lammert, Michael Markwick, Kerry James Marshall, Rezi van Lankveld, Lara de Moor, Matthew Metzger, Marc Mulders, Kaido Ole, Jorge Queiroz, Fiona Rae, Daniel Richter, Jessica Stockholder, Marc Trujillo, Anna Tuori, Matthias Weischer, Paula Zarina-Zemane and Gerlind Zeilner.
CATALOG Martin Von Wagner Museum (German and ENGLISH) 2019
MICHAEL MARKWICK: NEW SONGS TO LEARN AND SING – Prof. Dr. Damian Dombrowski und Sophie Renninger
221 x 297 mm ( 8.7 x 11.7 in.)
Hardcover, full color, thread stitching – 29 Full color illustrations of recent paintings and drawings
84 Pages
ISBN: 9783897545328
Texts; German and English with translations
Michael Markwick: Natur und Zeit; Prof. Dr. Damian Dombrowski, Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg
Direktor der Neueren Abteilung
Of Bones and Light; Sophie Renninger, B.A.
Publisher: J.H. Röll Verlag
CATALOG – MICHAEL MARKWICK SUNSHINE FOR A LONG MIDNIGHT (English and German) 2020
MICHAEL MARKWICK: NEUE GEMÄLDE
In vielen meiner Arbeiten formieren sich dabei Kontrapunkte aus gegensätzlichen Kräften: Dissonanz trifft auf Symmetrie der Form, ebene Bereiche kollidieren mit der Tiefe des Raums und helle Farben leuchten im Kontrast zu gedämpften Tönen.
(DE / EN)
16 pages
Publisher Galerie Born/ katalogdruck-berlin.de
Kataloge auf die feine Art.
SERIOUS PLAY: LUCY TEASDALE / MICHAEL MARKWICK – Karin Schulze
Meist entstehen Markwicks Bilder aus unzähligen Übermalungen und Schichtungen. Um die physische Struktur der Farbe hervorzuheben, mixt er manchmal Sand in die Farbe oder kappt sie mit Rasierklingen und Spachteln. Den Malprozess versteht Markwick als Dialog und Widerstreit von Farben, Formen und motivisch-narrativen Intuitionen wie Landschaftselementen. In den aktuellen Arbeiten zeichnen sich auch Andeutungen einer menschlichen Gestalt, einer Blume oder eines Papierdrachens ab.
20 pages
Publisher Galerie Born/ katalogdruck-berlin.de
Kataloge auf die feine Art.
2014 GEIST und FORM Catalog Ten Painters from Berlin
BERNARD FRIZE, THOMAS SCHEIBITZ , MICHAEL MARKWICK , SOFIE BIRD MOLLER , MAARTEN JANSSEN, JORGE QUEIROZ, ADRIANA MOLDER, MARK LAMMERT, KATHARINA OTTO,VALÉRIE FAVRE
70 pages, with illustrations in color
Preface by Betsy Stirratt, director of the Grunwald Gallery Introduction by Jurriaan Benschop, curator of the exhibition.
Published by Grunwald Gallery of Art, Indiana University, 2014. ISBN978-0-9772972-5-2
Kataloge auf die feine Art.
An Infinite Gaze- Jurriaan Benschop (Nederlands/ English/ Deutsch)
![A View Without End, Dutch Artists in Berlin. Autocenter. Curator: Jurriaan Benschop. Berlin (DE) [cat]](https://michaelmarkwick.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/2-autocenter_-markwicksm.jpg "Texts / Catalogs 7")
”When the Dutch/American painter Michael Markwick zooms in on a tree, a branch, a protuberance or roots, he does so seemingly with a greedy eye for the form and the outer texture. He grasps nature in all its materiality, with the rough bark and the decay that go along with it, and with the light that falls on it bestowing tone and shadow. At the same time, the artist seems bent on identifying an underlying principle, something that propels nature, that makes it swish, burst open and bend over. It is not just a matter of bowing before the wind but a more fundamental, less tangible force.”[more]
2013 ECOZONA: by Isabel Hoving“Green Counter Cultures
[Online], 4 1 May 2013“Sometimes it is painfully clear that a digital journal fails to do justice to the art work it presents. To appreciate Michael Markwick’s paintings and drawings, such as Dark Water, our cover image, one should be able to face them up front. They are immense. Most of the paintings measure almost 2,5 by almost 3 meters. The overwhelming charcoal drawing (Blackened Earth) even measures 195 X 700 cm.” [more]
Among Trees by Jurriaan Benschop/ Translation Beth O’Brien (English)
Trench (2009)
195 x 295 cm
Charcoal on paper
Private Collection Berlin
“I always need to start with a landscape,” I once heard a writer say when asked, in an interview, how his novels took shape. First comes a spatial image, and within that the characters subsequently emerge as the story unfolds. In the work of visual artist Michael Markwick, a similar kind of thing takes place. He, too, seems to need the landscape as a means to generate something else: in his case, not a narrative or a character, but a drama in terms of form, which does show human characteristics though. The large charcoal drawings that he produced in 2009 show landscapes. The question that arises on looking at them is whether ‘landscape’ can actually be regarded as the subject being dealt with by the artist, or if it serves rather as a setting for other matters.
Disturbed Nature: Drie kunstenaars op de rand van het natuurlijke (Nederlands)
Disturbed Nature: Drie kunstenaars op de rand van het natuurlijke (Nederlands) Disturbed Nature: Drei Künstler am Rande des Natürlichen: Jurriaan Benschop (Deutsch) Disturbed Nature: Three Artists on the edge of nature: Jurriaan Benschop