Oliver Plehn - But life still goes on

But life still goes on. Charcoal, gouache, and oil painting on a 100 cm x 100 cm canvas from 2020 inspired by the pandemic. Signed with a black marker in the bottom right corner. Comes with a certificate of authenticity, immaculate condition. The artwork is sent rolled inside a tube.

Artist Biography – Oliver Plehn
The work of German painter and draftsman Oliver Plehn is characterized by expressive representations of the human and animal body. Faces and bodies form the center of his artistic universe: powerful, sensitive, and full of psychological depth. From his childhood, he was influenced by the imagery of the German Expressionists, whose emotional immediacy and formal freedom remain a reference point in his artistic language to this day.
From a young age, Plehn decided to be an artist and maintain his creative independence. In addition to studying painting and drawing at art schools, he pursued studies in natural sciences, which afforded him professional independence and artistic freedom. In the early 1990s, a scholarship in the field of quantum mechanics took him to Madrid.
Oliver Plehn lives with his wife and two daughters in the Carabanchel Alto neighborhood of Madrid.
Artistic Statement
My work stems from a desire to understand the human condition in its deepest and most contradictory aspects. Throughout my career, I have explored portraiture as a means to reveal not only the visible, but also the hidden: repressed emotions, scars of the soul, gestures of silent resistance. I paint from a place of fragility, from that liminal space where pain and beauty coexist without permission.
I'm not interested in capturing perfect faces, but rather presence, the kind that speaks of what remains unspoken. I'm drawn to silences, to gazes that carry stories, to bodies that vibrate with lived experience. Each work is, for me, an attempt at dialogue with the unknown, that inner territory from which we often try to escape.
My goal as an artist is to create images that are not only observed, but that challenge the viewer. I want them to act as mirrors in which one can find something of oneself, even in unease or discomfort. I work figuratively, yes, but I seek in it an opening to mystery, to doubt, to emotion that defies words.
I feel that art has the power to heal, to reveal, and to accompany. In this sense, my practice is also a form of care: for myself, and for all those who approach these images with an open heart.
Exhibitions
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Online presence on Artsy
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Online presence on Flecha.es
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Online presence at 1819 Art Gallery
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“Aqua versus Terra”, September 1-30, 2025, Madrid
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“Hidden Madrid”, June 1 to July 15, 2025, Madrid
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“The Gods of Muay Thai and a Strange One”, December 1, 2022 – January 6, 2023, Madrid
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Exhibition at the Yale Graduate School of Art, March 2021
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Solo exhibition at Madrid-Barajas International Airport "Faces of the World", December 30, 2019 – February 7, 2020
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Solo exhibition "The Passion of the Christ" at the German church Friedenskirche, Calle Serrano 6, Madrid
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Exhibition at the United Artist Fair 2019 at the Casa de Cantabria, Madrid, February 2019
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Painting exhibition on Serrano Street, Madrid, December 2018 – February 2019
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Solo exhibition of paintings in Madrid, Spain, November 2018
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Painting exhibition in Madrid, Spain, Serrano Street, November 2016 – January 2017