WORKS ON PAPER 2026
Marcus Jansen’s work can be read as a deliberate stripping away of colonial culture and the visual languages that have long normalized domination, conquest, and erasure. Rather than reproducing the polished narratives of power associated with imperial history, Jansen fractures them.
His paintings often depict collapsing structures, anonymous figures, and chaotic landscapes that feel post-imperial spaces where authority has lost its certainty and colonial myths no longer hold.
Jansen dismantles colonial culture by refusing its traditional symbols of order and progress. Military motifs, architectural remnants, and bureaucratic systems appear unstable or abandoned, suggesting the failure of ideologies that once justified expansion and control. These elements are not celebrated; they are exposed as hollow frameworks, stripped of legitimacy and permanence. In this way, Jansen turns the visual language of empire against itself.
The absence of clear heroes or dominant perspectives further undermines colonial thinking. Jansen’s figures are often obscured, faceless, or isolated, resisting the colonial impulse to categorize, possess, or narrate from a single authoritative viewpoint. This ambiguity invites viewers to confront uncertainty rather than accept inherited hierarchies of power and culture.
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