Oliver Osborne United Kingdom, b. 1985

Oliver Osborne (b.1985) is known for his enigmatic portraits of anonymous sitters, meticulous depictions of plants, and visual quotations from art historical sources. Playing with the language of painting, the British-born Berlin based painter considers the place of the medium in a world dominated by digital technologies, often combining styles from across art history into a single image. The mysterious Recent Painting (Thirteen Leaves) shows a ghostly, dispassionate face peering through leafy fronds that are similarly devoid of context. These figurative elements appear as apparitions in the midst of a large, abstract field of red paint. Resembling a digital collage, David (Without the Head of Goliath) is also seemingly incomplete, depicting the fragmentary head of a child juxtaposed with more plant leaves. Both pictures epitomise the uncertain sense of reality engendered by the proliferation of digital images in contemporary society yet remain firmly rooted in the analogue world of painting.