180 x 150cm
(59 1/16 in x 70 7/8 in.)
Acrylic, fabric, sand, and paper on canvas
“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.”
— From the book Why Paintings Work, by Jurriaan Benschop
“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.”
— Karin Schulze
“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 × 700 cm.”
— Isabel Hoving