Markus Oehlen (born 1956, Krefeld, Germany) is a German visual artist, sculptor, and musician, recognized for his radical contributions to neo-expressionist painting and his role in shaping the Neue Wilde movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Alongside figures such as Martin Kippenberger, Markus Lüpertz, and his brother Albert Oehlen, he helped define a generation of artists who rejected minimalism in favor of instinctive, gestural, and punk-inflected expression.

Oehlen studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1976 to 1982, where he was mentored by Alfonso Hüppi. His early work was characterized by a deliberate opposition to formal restraint, embracing raw energy, visual overload, and cultural sampling. He was a founding member of sev...