Born in Manhattan in 1968, he lived in the South Bronx and Queens before moving to Moenchengladbach in Germany. Marcus Jansen is an artist who manages to mix contemporary art and graffiti.
His works always address important themes, exploring and documenting the human condition in a critical, social and political way.
Jansen’s canvases are undoubtedly influenced by the years on the battlefields he spent as a member of the US armed forces during conflicts such as Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
“I began by questioning our global socio-political and geopolitical landscape in a quest for personal clarity after our invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the Twin Towers in my hometown, New York City, collapsed,” he explains. “For me it was a way to deal with a second conflict, having been part of the first invasion myself ten years earlier. Being in strong opposition to it was a way to feel a sense of control over something I couldn’t change”.
Now his colorful and expressive brushstrokes will be on display from September 18 to January 3, 2021 at Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Orlando, Florida.
With this exhibition Marcus Jansen has set himself an essential goal, to question our world.
The artist’s new exhibition focuses on works created over the past 15 years and includes both large-scale paintings and a selection of works on paper, including some exhibited for the first time. “Many of the paintings in this exhibition were painted more than ten years ago, but today they seem somehow more transparent to a wider audience.“
Here is a selection of his most moving works in his next exhibition.