Max Benz is not a painter in search of subjects. He is an investigator of painting itself — one who interrogates the fundamental conditions of the medium from within: What is the minimum of a painting? What remains of painting when no new color is added — only thought and gesture? Where does the work begin, and where does it end? Trained initially as a sculptor, Benz approaches every painting as an object. Deep stretcher frames without borders, snow-white edges that precisely define the perceptual boundaries of the work, paint that is not applied but moved, displaced, removed — none of this is aesthetic preference. It is conceptual necessity.

In his “Depaintings” the entire surface is first covered with paint, then scraped back with wide spatulas. What remains are traces, scratches, ridges of accumulated pigment: the irreducible minimum of what can still be recognized as a painting. In the monochrome series “Achroma”, “Lumina” and “Obscena”, individual conditions of painting are isolated and examined one by one: color, light, emotional force.


CV: Born 1968 Max Benz started his sculptural education at the age of fifteen. 1991 he was admitted at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and entered the class of Professor Edgar Callahan one year later. While working he slowly changed his focus from sculpture to painting and after another year he subsequently switched class to renowned German painter Markus Lüpertz. In 1996 Benz was appointed as "Meisterschüler" (master class student) of Professor Markus Lüpertz and leaves the academy in 1998. Since then he makes a living as a freelance painter and sculptor.
Max Benz is married and has two children, he lives and works in Cologne / Germany.