Liz Markus

Liz Markus is known for her idiosyncratic paintings that combine colorful expressionism with pop imagery. Though she has depicted personalities as radically different as Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten and first lady Nancy Reagan, her works shares her signature technique of saturated washes of acrylic paint on unprimed canvas. Vibrant colors diffuse and bleed into one another, creating trippy wet-on-wet compositions that evoke sixties psychedelia as well as the "high art" of midcentury Color Field painting. Even Markus's majestic landscape paintings are touched by an irreverent Pop sensibility. Titled after the lyrics of 1970s lounge legends like Burt Bacharach, these sumptuous paintings of waterfalls and sunsets take cues from the Hudson River School and Sunday plein air painters alike. Markus has had solo exhibitions at ZieherSmith in New York and Galleri Loyal in Stockholm.