A cotton rag covered in acrylic wash masquerades as a flag fluttering in the foreground of a wooded landscape. The eye shifts pushing the rag backward to reveal a second landscape. Droplets of brightly colored paint clusters come together to evoke fireworks over a moonlit Long Island shore. Working in extended series and cycles, Jörg Madlener uses abstraction as a way to hold and reveal time, treating each stage of painting as a complete moment, preserved within the final form. Influenced by earlier, American abstract painters Jackson Pollock (1912-56) and Cy Twombly (1928-2011), Madlener’s compositions are activated by gesture, chance, and the interplay of painted and drawn marks.
Born seven days after the start of World War II, Madlener grew up in Germany and lived 35 years in Belgium, before relocating to the United States. In 1988, he spent several days on Long Island at the home of Pollock and his wife, artist Lee Krasner (1908-1980), documenting the site and his own process. He explained each phase of his painting as a self-contained artwork, with abstract references to the artist reflected through a windowpane, working both inside and outside the studio simultaneously. Madlener’s practice involves shifting time, fluid perspectives, and a layering of meaning. In his words, “Painting is a single moment that retains its unfolding.”
Description written by Kirstin Brehm, 2026.
