Markus Döbeli

The below text is an excerpt from Dieter Schwarz’s preface essay which accompanied the exhibition of Markus Döbeli with Marc Jancou Contemporary in 2021. 

Few words are needed to introduce Markus Döbeli. He is a painter, based in Lucerne. Everything else is revealed – only and solely – through his art. The large-scale format he tends to prefer means that his works are difficult to exhibit, whether on gallery walls or on catalogue pages.

Each painting is a stand-alone piece, which makes his work all the more remarkable. There is no consistent formal vocabulary, no particularly memorable stylistic gestus. What his paintings all share is the natural way in which they materialize. When you look at them on the wall, they are not immediately apparent. The longer

you look, the more they begin to take shape; slowly the painting begins to emerge. The first thing you notice is the light-coloured canvas, often unprimed or coated with a clear varnish. Next comes the paint, light and transparent, that tends to flow from the edges into the wide-open space of the canvas. Not one but multiple colours, often heavily watered down, start to come through.

The full text first appeared in the Markus Döbeli exhibition catalogue "Paintings and Watercolours" published by Marc Jancou Contemporary in 2022.