 Oehlen studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Alfonso Hüppi).His is formative participant of the German art movement Neue Wilde, which was especially active in Germany during the 1980s, and used a punk style that stood in opposition to minimalism.The aim was to attack the high-browed nature of minimalism with a style of painting that is based on instinct and gesturally emphasizes the wild, spontaneous, obsessive and sensual.