Max Renkel (b. 1966, Munich, Germany) produces multimedia works that veer between pure abstraction and representational elements. His ongoing study of colour and composition often entails separate shapes to merge and morph, to create forms that are at once familiar and alien. They are curvilinear and voluptuous entities that appear to float in their environments, unbound by forces of gravity. Renkel’s paintings and works on paper appear more akin to the realm of sculpture, in turn challenging the limitations of the two-dimensional surface. Renkel also explores the processes of abstraction in relation to the female body. With an effective and deliberately ironic discretion, the artist depicts an essence of a female form through experimental artistic methods and materials. His practice investigates the procedures, connections and passages that intervene between historical theory and contemporary representation. He currently lives and works in Italy.

Selected Exhibitions

Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; MuseumQuartier, Vienna; Studio Sales di Norberto Ruggeri, Rome; Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Rome; Schirmer/Mosel Showroom, Munich; Schirmer/Mosel Showroom, Munich; Una Vetrina, Rome; Stefan Schuelke Fine Books, Cologne; Marco Gietmann, Berlin; and Galleria Ugo Ferranti, Rome.

Interested in Max Renkel’s work?