Malcolm Liepke has decades of painting experience, emerging from a career in illustration in the 1980s to become a fine artist whose distinct style is often emulated but never matched. Collected at a high level, you can spot a Liepke from across the room. There is no mistaking his dynamic, buttery brushstrokes, his bold—one might say fearless—use of color, and the intensity his figures exude, whether in a moment of tranquility or engaging the viewer with a penetrating gaze.
Shhh…, oil on canvas, 10 x 8"Liepke’s work is deeply informed by the master figurative painters of the 19th century, notably John Singer Sargent, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Diego Velázquez and James McNeill Whistler, and has assimilated elements of each artist’s particular genius into his own paintings, while making them completely his own.
“I connect to figurative painters and always have,” says Liepke. “They appeal to me on many levels. I like modern art on a cerebral level, and can appreciate composition and color, but they don’t move me on a deeper level like figurative works do. I tend to go back 100 years or farther. There is a timeless appeal to them…you can strip away all the costumes and the clothes but the person is still there and that hasn’t changed. When you paint city scenes, they change, but it’s not the case with people. The way the light catches a figure or an expression—it’s timeless.”
Field of Color, oil on canvas, 42 x 36"
Liepke’s figures may look like actual people in actual places, but they are largely imagined, composites of individuals and scenes he’s glimpsed moving through the world, photographs and sketches.
“My people don’t always look like the people I’m painting,” he says. “They’re mostly made up. The clothes. The hair color. The backgrounds. I’ve adapted them so that they’re my people. Every artist has 'their people' and I do mine a particular way because of the way I see things, that's what makes them my people.”
Resting with Child, oil on canvas, 16 x 12"
Hands to Chest, oil on canvas, 15 x 11"
Liepke’s domain is the whole range of human emotion. He’s painted mothers and children, lovers embracing and lovers estranged. The male form is of equal interest. He thinks people find his work so compelling because of the intimate connection he has with his subjects.
“You have to connect with the person you’re painting,” he says. “In order for you to connect with my women and men, I have to connect with them. That connection is what [good]art does.”
Little Girl Blue, oil on canvas, 16 x 13"
A spirit of experimentation drives Liepke’s work, and in recent years he’s been pushing his style in increasingly modern directions. While his painterliness, the figure and emotional impact have remained constant, his work is less narrative; looser, brushier; the colors are bolder and the backgrounds are more abstract than the pieces that first captured the attention of the art world in the ’80s. But Liepke says his upcoming show at Arcadia Contemporary, his first at the gallery in five years, is something of “a throw back to peak Liepke stuff.” Among the 25 new works, we’ll see more of his classic nightclub and café scenes filled with exuberant people laughing and dancing—a more overtly joyful series in general.
Wrapped Arms, 10 x 8"
“All I can do is follow my heart and if it moves me so that I want to paint it, hopefully it moves you the same way,” he says. “It’s like a good piece of music, people gravitate to the emotion in it, and there’s a human connection. We go through life thinking our problems are ours and only ours, but they’re all of ours. They’re universal.” —
Arcadia Contemporary 421 W. Broadway • New York, NY 10012 • (646) 861-3941 • www.arcadiacontemporary.com
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