"Since 1976, he also signed simply Y."

"Penck was born in Dresden, Germany. In his early teens he took painting and drawing lessons with Jürgen Böttcher, known by the pseudonym Strawalde, and joined with him to form the renegade artists’ group Erste Phalanx Nedserd [de] (“Dresden” spelled backward)."

"An autodidact, he created in his paintings, "worlds" and "experience spaces", filled with symbolic abbreviations. He used stick figures and graphic icons that seem reminiscent of cave paintings, Asian calligraphy and graffiti art."