Markus Oehlen (born in 1956, in Krefeld) is a German artist. Oehlen studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Alfonso Hüppi). His is formative participant of the German art movement Neue Wilde, which was especially active in Germany during the 1980s, and used a punk style that stood in opposition to minimalism. The aim was to attack the high-browed nature of minimalism with a style of painting that is based on instinct and gesturally emphasizes the wild, spontaneous, obsessive and sensual.