Magnus Plessen's painting combine an abstract, gestural style with a figurative subject matter. His tactile and expressive brushwork renders the subject elusive whilst also confounding any fixed viewpoint. His recent works include 1914, a project for The Rose Art Museum. Drawing on historical material from Ernst Friedrich's War Against War, 1924, Plessen transcribes the anti-war polemic of traumatic imagery into a vernacular of painterly gesture.
Read MoreBorn in Hamburg, the painter lives and works in Berlin. His process involves the application and removal of paint, a technique that is reminiscent of Richter's paintings. This structured building up of the image reveals a investment in the materiality of the work, yet the physicality of the painting is held in constant check by the push and pull of space.
Plessen's works have been exhibited throughout the world including London's White Cube, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Gladstone Gallery in New York.
