Paula Mueller
24 Jan - 08 Mar 2008
PAULA MUELLER
"like a question march "
24/1 - 8/3/2008
Paula Mueller (°1977 Trier, Germany) draws and paints. She uses pencils and crayons, oil or water colours, felt-tip pens and other materials in her usually small works on paper and allows herself to be inspired by a myriad of subjects. She incorporates personal experiences and ideas as well as real and invented things in her drawings. She draws herself, other people, fictitious people, beings that exist only in her imagination, situations, landscapes, sometimes only in a few strokes and at other times elaborated to perfection in an almost photo-realistic way. She often works with only a few clear colour accents. Mueller often uses quotes that she extracts from a wide variety of sources, such as Goya’s etchings or contemporary comic books. She usually integrates such quotes in her work leaving them looking clearly alienated. Her works breathe both ironic introspection and an interest in collected and perceived moments, motifs or ideas; she understands the art of uniting the most diverse drawing and composition styles.That is not the only reason why the viewer often gets caught up in a system of cross-references in which art-historical links are just as important as extremely personal allusions and anecdotes. She often also incorporates texts or text extracts in her drawings. The artist uses and likes to mix various languages in these linguistic pieces of décor, ranging from jotted-down thoughts, quotes, puns, slogans to short poems, but does not make them lead the viewer to an interpretation.
It is always uncertain whether the text is describing the drawing or whether the drawing is illustrating the words; a given that is even more enhanced by the fact that she meticulously builds mistakes or linguistic misconceptions into her works in order to widen their framework of interpretation. According to the artist herself, she is always trying to come up with a language of her own that is still readable.
In addition to these smaller works, she has also done perfectly elaborated drawings of a larger size and works that were in tune with their environment on the wall she made especially for the exhibition location. Paula Mueller intertwines all these different ways of working into installations that connect all the separate pieces of art to each other.
It also shows that her methods to integrate various influences in her works are not limited to the external; in the same way Mueller also uses her own body of work as a resource; she quotes, comments on and combines her own image worlds, she repeats some of them and again cross-links them with each other. Again and again she links her works in the way she puts them up, she directly glues or draws things on the wall and integrates smaller works in her wall drawings.
Paula Mueller tells stories, evokes conceptions and leaves impressions. Her works sparkle with irony and graphical charm and induce emotions in the viewer without surrendering too much of what they are all about. She succeeds in conveying deeper levels of meaning with wit and humour that reveal a lot, but forever remain somewhat mysterious.
Michael Pohl, Curator
"like a question march "
24/1 - 8/3/2008
Paula Mueller (°1977 Trier, Germany) draws and paints. She uses pencils and crayons, oil or water colours, felt-tip pens and other materials in her usually small works on paper and allows herself to be inspired by a myriad of subjects. She incorporates personal experiences and ideas as well as real and invented things in her drawings. She draws herself, other people, fictitious people, beings that exist only in her imagination, situations, landscapes, sometimes only in a few strokes and at other times elaborated to perfection in an almost photo-realistic way. She often works with only a few clear colour accents. Mueller often uses quotes that she extracts from a wide variety of sources, such as Goya’s etchings or contemporary comic books. She usually integrates such quotes in her work leaving them looking clearly alienated. Her works breathe both ironic introspection and an interest in collected and perceived moments, motifs or ideas; she understands the art of uniting the most diverse drawing and composition styles.That is not the only reason why the viewer often gets caught up in a system of cross-references in which art-historical links are just as important as extremely personal allusions and anecdotes. She often also incorporates texts or text extracts in her drawings. The artist uses and likes to mix various languages in these linguistic pieces of décor, ranging from jotted-down thoughts, quotes, puns, slogans to short poems, but does not make them lead the viewer to an interpretation.
It is always uncertain whether the text is describing the drawing or whether the drawing is illustrating the words; a given that is even more enhanced by the fact that she meticulously builds mistakes or linguistic misconceptions into her works in order to widen their framework of interpretation. According to the artist herself, she is always trying to come up with a language of her own that is still readable.
In addition to these smaller works, she has also done perfectly elaborated drawings of a larger size and works that were in tune with their environment on the wall she made especially for the exhibition location. Paula Mueller intertwines all these different ways of working into installations that connect all the separate pieces of art to each other.
It also shows that her methods to integrate various influences in her works are not limited to the external; in the same way Mueller also uses her own body of work as a resource; she quotes, comments on and combines her own image worlds, she repeats some of them and again cross-links them with each other. Again and again she links her works in the way she puts them up, she directly glues or draws things on the wall and integrates smaller works in her wall drawings.
Paula Mueller tells stories, evokes conceptions and leaves impressions. Her works sparkle with irony and graphical charm and induce emotions in the viewer without surrendering too much of what they are all about. She succeeds in conveying deeper levels of meaning with wit and humour that reveal a lot, but forever remain somewhat mysterious.
Michael Pohl, Curator