Oehlen is one of those artists who's so totalizing, it can feel like there's nowhere to go, nothing he hasn't already done. In fact, that's just an illusion, and a testament to his brilliance. Throw a rock and you'll hit a few decent abstract painters. Following oehlen into abstraction and out of it by way of a certain kind of constraint is my idea. Social constraint, as the kind we all face when beginning to work with materials. 

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That being said, the old adage that abstraction emanates from the psyche of the artist is not entirely wrong either. You have to be free in your decision making. If you labor too much, you will lose the emergy. One wrong move, not in the sense of a mistake but in the sense of knowing what you're doing while painting and you've lost it. Oehlen, of course pursues the mistake to its far end until it comes out as a strength. When I was doing the baby oehlens I didn't care how they looked. Now with the movie canvasses, I can't care because I have to follow what's on the screen as best I can, while always falling behind. Falling behind, eternal belatedness is how I see painting as something that conveys meaning. (Again in this I follow oehlen). Painting and art more broadly operates with a follower status always belatedly coming to issues decided elsewhere. I'm sick of that.