Jochen Mühlenbrink

Jochen Mühlenbrink paints in oil and acrylic in the tradition of trompe-l'œil, making by hand what the eye takes for real: strips of masking and duct tape, water droplets, condensation and finger-drawn doodles on fogged glass. In his Window Paintings a misted pane seems to sit between the viewer and the view; in his Tape Paintings painted tape appears stuck to the surface of the canvas. Mühlenbrink stages these situations in the studio, taping, misting and lighting surfaces and photographing them as references before he paints. Recent works move onto mirror glass, where translucent veils of resin resemble mist and simple marks such as smiley faces, skulls and stick figures are made permanent, so that viewers meet their own reflection, interrupted. Grounded in modernist and classical painting, the work tests how far we trust what we see.