​​​​​Ariane Ahlmann was born in Berlin, Germany. The city's unconventional spirit and subculture were Ahlmann's early artistic influence. While working as a photographer for the Axel Springer publishing house, it was the underground art scene that became Ahlmann's first artistic platform. Textile painting, experimental theater, and short films were her early forms of artistic expression. Except for a degree in photography and a Master of Arts in literature, Ahlmann has no formal art education. Her teaching ground was the art scene in the borough of Kreuzberg, the epicenter of the German neo-expressionism. In the following years Ahlmann broadened her skills in textile painting and sold her work under the pseudonym of MOX. Jobs in galleries and in film production amongst others followed. In the late 1990s, while living in Spain, Ahlmann began to focus on illustration and collage making, which would ten years later lead her to painting. In 2008 Ahlmann moved to Brooklyn, New York and started showing her work in 2014. While her early paintings integrated collage, thick texture and different materials, such as cloth, Ahlmann distanced herself over the years from these forms, giving preference to shape and form.