Oehlen describes his paintings as “post-non-representational”. Through exploring and challenging the tropes and expectations of conventional abstraction, he strives to reconstitute a contemporary meaning for art as an independently articulate form. In works such as Untitled, Oehlen lavishes the picture plane with a clich’d exaggeration of painterly expression. Awkwardly encumbered, the sophistication of Untitled lies in its audacity, teetering on the razor edge between misfortune and masterpiece.