Welcome and thanks for visiting!

I’m a journalist and since 2019 deputy editor of the Basler Zeitung in Basel, Switzerland. My first article in the city’s leading newspaper was published in May 1990. A few months before, I’d graduated from the University of Basel with a master’s degree in history and German literature.

My first oil colors I bought in the summer of 1980 shortly before a vacation in Blatten, in the canton of Valais. I’m self taught, never attended art school or something similar. So in the beginning it was simply a matter of experimenting and gathering some experience with the materials. A few of these early paintings still exist. Several years later, in 2002, I began painting again, either in my living room in Basel or on the porch of my house in Waldoboro, Maine, where I spend part of my life. Between 2002 and 2014 roughly 70 paintings were created. Most of them in oil, some with pastels.

Then there was yet another break. Why? Because.

Now I’m ready to paint again. My works of art don’t follow any “school”, there’s no “message” or “political agenda” or a “concept”. I paint what I see, feel, experience or think. For one of my paintings to stand my test of quality it has to talk back to me. Loud and clear. If it remains silent it will be painted over.

I will stop creating after exactly 121 paintings. The reason for this I’ll keep to myself.

Some of my paintings I’ve sold, some I’ve given to friends and family. Some are in the U.S., some in Germany and Switzerland. A red dot marks the sold ones, green means that I’ve given them away. I miss all of them.

Glad you’re here! Please stay a little while longer, enjoy and maybe come back! Would you like to get in touch with me – please do!

Best, Markus Wüest