Malcolm Liepke American, b. 1953

When developing a visual reference for a new painting, Malcolm Liepke seeks the concurrent sensation of a simultaneously jarring and enticing image. Although initially intuitive, once certain themes or patterns begin to emerge in his selection, he will then cull and hone images more deliberately.  Attracted the pushing the boundaries of legibility, his figures are often suspended outside conventional time. His compositions range and vary, from charged encounters between protagonists in elusive environments, to more prosaic representations of fundamental human emotions. Emerging as a painter in the early 1980s in New York, Liepke’s contemporaries were dealing with the aftereffects of major minimalist and conceptual practitioners. Liepke’s practice instead demonstrated a sustained engagement with the painterly traditions of earlier American masters, such as John Singer Sargent. Malcolm Liepke was born in 1953 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California before opting for a self-taught approach to his practice. Liepke has been exhibiting internationally for over four decades, his works can be founding the collections of the Smithsonian American Museum of Art/National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC); Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY); Indiana Museum of Art (Logansport, IN) and the National Academy of Design (New York, NY).