"What reasons can you have to move left, right, straight, or in circles? There are many answers to that. And then i saw the trees doing that in a way, the winter tree that I choose. They have the freedom to make any move. And so they are a kind of model of abstraction." — Albert Oehlen

Albert Oehlen’s Baumbilder (Tree Paintings) series is a continuation of the artist’s exploration into abstract visual language. The tree motif first emerged in Oehlen’s work in the 1980s and has since become a recurring subject. Through the redefinition of this motif, Oehlen engages in a constant re-examination of the foundations of painting, expanding and bending its boundaries.

In his study of abstraction, Oehlen has not entirely abandoned elements of figuration. The result is a sophisticated fusion of two opposing pictorial practices that, when combined, do not conflict but rather complement each other, creating a harmonious visual composition. The Tree Paintings blend the figural and the abstract, bridging the gap between representation and pure abstraction.

Within the picture plane, a bare and leafless tree trunk, with tangled branches, floats against a white ground, next to blocks of magenta color gradations. The interplay of painted, spray-painted, and screen-printed lines creates a dynamic collision between mechanical and hand-made gestures. Rather than using a traditional canvas as his foundation, Oehlen chose aluminum-coated Dibond panels, adding a layer of depth and texture to his work. The geometric tree lines, initially appearing to be digitally produced, reveal themselves to be the product of careful hand-rendering upon closer inspection, demonstrating Oehlen’s ability to blend modern techniques with traditional painting methods.