The primeval form of the world refers to the initial or primordial state of the Earth, before any significant development, and can be understood as a chaotic and incipient state, whether in mythological terms of a primordial chaos or in scientific terms as a young and dynamic planet, still in the process of formation. Daniel Mullen's primal form is the rectangle, a basic geometric figure crucial to geometric theory and, in turn, abstract art. However, for this artist it is a fundamental form of his work and has been explored in different ways in his paintings and, more recently, in sculptures. The works already evoked volume and three-dimensionality, but Daniel felt the need to expand his spatial investigation to ceramics and wood. In this research, he ended up coming across the density, temporality and complexity of the material, very different from the characteristics of his paintings full of translucency, agility and simplicity. In experimenting with the three-dimensional, issues with light and shadow and opacity and transparency gained new nuances.
The aesthetic operation engendered by Daniel Mullen with his primeval form resides mainly in repetition and recombination. In this new crop of works, the concept of time is also activated not only by the difference in the time spent making paintings and sculptures, but by the temporalities evoked by the forms: Aztec pyramids, futuristic constructions and digital language. The recombinations and twists of the rectangles activate these multiple times associated with historical moments in our unconscious. We cannot forget that one day the digital world will be the past, as are the pyramids and what we called the future until the end of the 20th century. In his poetics, therefore, Daniel activates the timeless character of geometry and the possibilities of abstraction in the current moment.
Cristiana Tejo
Lisbon, June 2024
Text by Curator, Max Hernández
Enlace Gallery, Lima Peru. 2023
In his first solo exhibition in Peru, the Scottish artist Daniel Mullen presents us with a series of canvases in which he seeks to bridge the gap between the tangible and intangible, the material and the virtual, and the mundane and the mystical. This intention is reflected in the title of the exhibition, "Chromatic Visions," which alludes to the perception of color but also evokes hallucinatory daydreams.
The geometric compositions that Mullen creates in his paintings seem inherent to the digital world. However, rather than being examples of computer-made graphic perfection, these images are the result of a meticulous process of artistic creation. The artist sketches compositional structures governed by symmetry and repetitive patterns of lines and mathematical planes, reminiscent of function graphs and equations – in other words, compositions determined by a formula. This feature introduces an idea of precision, even perfection, to Mullen's work that can be associated with the digital realm since computational languages are numerically based. But despite the apparent accuracy of these shapes and their technological echoes, these images are actually the product of a distinctly artisanal process. These compositions have been painted with glazes, a classically labor-intensive painting technique.
These meticulously crafted pictorial surfaces highlight the uniqueness of their manual execution. The brushstroke marks, variations in the thickness of the color layers, subtle imperfections in the lines, or the minimal traces of corrections that remain on the canvas are evidence of the artisanal production method of these paintings. Their rough and non-repeatable specificity stands in contrast to the infinitely repeatable perfection of the digital image these pieces bring to mind.
Through this meeting of the ideal and the concrete, Mullen combines two types of complexities: one that occurs in the mind, inherent to his mathematically based structures, and another that is experienced through the senses, corresponding to the visual richness of his work. Hence the use of the glazing technique, as it allows him to generate a range of subtle tonal variations and great luminosity, which multiply in the intersections between his linear structures. This results in abstract landscapes of harmonies and chromatic contrasts displayed in dynamic grids that invite us to immerse ourselves in them and to carefully explore them with our gaze. In this sense, Daniel Mullen creates a self-reflective space in his work, inviting us to a sensitive meditation on our own perceptual and mental processes at the very moment of perception.
(In)Visible Within
Zipper Galeria, Sao Paulo-2022
Text and Curation by Ana Carolina Ralston
“One line plus one line results in many meanings.” Josef Albers
In the beginning, there was nothing. In Western culture, darkness is usually associated with judgment and the moral idea of sin, death, and loneliness. Meanwhile, for the worldview of many aboriginal peoples in Latin America, darkness is related to the opposite universe, directly connected to creation, birth, and rebirth. Death is not the end, nor is it feared, but rather worshiped by different civilizations, from the pre-Columbian to the Guarani, who have occupied Brazil’s Atlantic Forest for centuries. Light is made through these consecrations. In experimenting with such contrasts, volumes emerge that provide us with an interesting game of concealing and revealing. The exhibition (In)Visible within, Daniel Mullen’s first solo show at Galeria Zipper, is about luminosity and its delicate and decisive relations with its surroundings.
The refraction of light that establishes itself is discussed in a complementary manner within both environments that make up the artist’s exhibition at the space located in Jardim América, in São Paulo. After all, the eye owes its main function to such a phenomenon. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) describes in his provocative The Theory of Colours, “Light produces an organ that becomes its equal. Thus, the eye is formed in the light and for the light, so that the inner light meets the outer light.” If on the one hand there is the clarity that bathes the first floor and the fifteen paintings displayed in this room, on the other hand, there is the darkness used as a backdrop for the works on paper under beveled wood and displayed on the second floor, where they seem to float in a more somber and intimate environment, which allows us to witness a new vein of the painter’s practice.
It is important to point out, however, that the progressive and rhythmic awakening of the luminosity present in Mullen’s production places us before another pillar of the artist’s practice, colour. In a symbiotic relationship, different nuances produce a fluctuating and organic dance embodied on canvas and/or paper. These works provide us with the experience of materiality and spatiality of light and colour proposed by the artist. As in a duel, the chromatic layers seem to advance, move away, and become transparent; the medium is transformed into a field of forces that gradually overlap, creating intersections between the two opposing planes exhibited. And the longer the viewing time, the greater the amplitude of these effects.
At first glance, Mullen’s production reveals itself to us as something mechanical, precise, schematic, and purely rational; as the appropriate realization of a project. “Disappointingly simple and yet immensely sophisticated,” as the Swiss-American historian François Bucher (1927-1999) described the work of Josef Albers (1888-1976). The resourcefulness with which Albers’ chromatic investigation develops is very similar to that of Mullen. Both creators allow us to open a new channel through their investigations and their infinite combinations transmuted into sensations, resulting in a precise study that involves the phenomenological aspect of colour and space.
An extract From the solo exhibition ‘Ephemeral Fields’ at Galeria Kogan Amaro / Zürich by Cynthia Garcia, an art historian and critic:
“Field connotes a body or a realm, and ephemeral means a fleeting, transitory or a brief moment in time”, explains abstract painter Daniel Mullen, known for his play with geometrical optical illusion, spatial perspective and light, to refer to the multiple horizons in his present paintings. The body of work for the solo exhibition “Ephemeral Fields” by artist Glasgow-born Daniel Mullen at Kogan Amaro / Zürich stems from the question “in what way might we imagine a future monument or the idea of a monument”. For the artist, the monument of the future does not uphold existing structures. It is neither dominating, oppressive, predetermined nor physically definable. Instead, it is light, space and movement expanding our perception in order to open our imagination to other futures. In the series the eye tracks across an image or “between images”, registering different aspects of the pictorial fields. It is what he means by an ephemeral experience. “I wish to offer a transitory experience that is not necessarily definable, a birthing if you will”, explains the artist on the works painted over transparently primed linen that seeps through the translucent layering of paint into the illusionistic weightlessness of the abstracted forms.
A prominent part in Mullen’s work is his expert use of colour aiming to affect the perception of the viewer. For him, colour and laying the layers down is an almost alchemic sensorial experience. In the paintings, the complex organization and meticulous execution of form and structure come into play to guide the viewer through relationships that are offered through illuminated hues and fleeting perspectives of aerial compositions. Are they thresholds? Portals? Space and weightless architecture remain present in the imaginative universe of the artist.
In his early works, Mullen had as references Neo-plasticism and “De Stijl”, with artists such as Mondrian and Theo Van Doesburg, most notably El Lissitzky and the Constructivism movement. In ”Ephemeral Fields” the pivotal inspirations are Hilma af Klint, Josef Albers and Bridget Riley along with the visual language of Swiss Emma Kunz, among others. “Now when thinking about movements, I would visually place my work somewhere between Geometric Abstraction and the Space and Light movement of California”, he acknowledges. “In my work, I’m interested in phenomenology; to perceive something that is not present or at least that which seems undefinable, a space out of reach beyond our perception. Through the act of painting, I try to channel this experience for another viewer beyond my own mind’s eye by seeking to render colour, form and light perceivable”.
The solo exhibition “Ephemeral Fields” by Daniel Mullen is his first at Kogan Amaro / Zürich. In 2019, the artist exhibited the solo “Colour Equation” at Kogan Amaro / São Paulo. The Swiss exhibition comprises of 23 paintings with an average size of 150 x140 cm, the largest being a 400 x 190 cm diptych.
His career started from the natural passion architecture and spaces exert on him. The artist creates perspectives, toying with optical illusions, which come to place by combining pigmentation and geometry.”
A conversation between Bob Van Orsouw and Daniel Mullen about the exhibition.
EXHIBITION TEXT
Elan Fine Art is thrilled to present Amsterdam-based artist Daniel Mullen in his first major Canadian exhibition. Mullen describes himself as a “devoted craftsman”, who meticulously creates his works without digital or mechanical aid.
When you wake up tomorrow, imagine you could vividly see the sound of gentle raindrops cascading from the sky, falling in tainted silence, tumbling through rustling leaves, the sound of mournful cooing of a dove in the distance, interrupted by the abrupt cawing of a willful crow, and the sound of methodical lapping of tires on the wet asphalt of a passing car. They display a mirage of colours in front of your eyes, colours you have never been able to put words to, subtle colour variations you see in Daniel Mullen’s paintings.
Some of Mullen’s paintings are an exploration of his wife, filmmaker Lucy Cordes Engelman’s gift of conjoined sensory illusion called Synesthesia. By blending colour relationships with lines, Daniel Mullen arouses the viewer’s perception of space by employing an abstract language of lines and geometric shapes to create optical phenomena that appears kinetic or three-dimensional, these layered images of shapes appear to be either protruding or receding from an illusionary space. His works convey a kinetic energy that engages our eyes with the dynamism of his works, while bringing a tempered sense of structure and balance.
Paul Kyle, owner of Elan Fine Art and gallerist for over four decades says that these works are passionate, inspiring paintings that demand engagement, and that they encompass what he personally seeks in art – beauty and elegance. He feels these works offer an opportunity for collectors to get in at an early stage of an already embraced internationally acknowledged artist. Daniel Mullen is rapidly gaining international prestige, from London to New York, recently having his first museum exhibition in Berlin, and a completely sold-out show in Sao Paulo this year. Mullen’s paintings are compared to Jesus Soto’s three-dimensional works, they reveal light ignited by inward desire, for they are paintings that explore the density of sparsity, of weightlessness, emptiness, and carry romantic notions of luminescence, rather than seeking for analogies of an abstract concept in the science of visual language.
COLOUR EQUATION
(Original text in Portugees)
Text and curation by Carolina Ralston
The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky was able to create waves of different colors and geometrical shapes through the sounds that sprang from an orchestra. This is how he painted some of his most important artworks, Composition VII (1913), which he painted after listening to a symphony while in Germany. Sounds can also be observed in all its magnitude when talking about British artist David Hockney. He is capable of blending two of human’s five senses while painting landscapes in colors whose inspiration comes from nature’s sounds. This close bond among different sensorial experiences is called synesthesia. The Scottish-born artist Daniel Mullen doesn't experience synesthesia, however through his current collaboration with Lucy Cordes Engelman, through paintings they are exploring her Synesthetic reality. The resulting works are now being exhibited in this exhibition at Galeria Kogan Amaro, in Brazil.
Mullen’s paintings are built up through multiple layers of translucent acrylic paint which together offer a sensation to those who possess the unique synesthetic ability to observe time as color. American filmmaker Lucy Cordes Engelman, who has spatial-temporal synesthesia believed that Mullen’s approach to painting could be a vehicle to visualize her synesthetic experience of time as color fields.
Cordes Engelman’s collaborates in the series creation, by defining the chromatic relationships to numbers. The creative process begins with the couple’s choice of a specific date. Each mathematical fraction that is part of the date triggers in Lucy’s brain a determined shade, Number two, for instance, represents yellow for her, explains Mullen. Such prospects, plus the optical illusion that occurs between the combination of pigment and geometry, go back to the kinetic movement of the 50’s, in Paris. Mullen’s earlier series derives from his childhood passion for architecture and spatial construction. Synesthesia, however, maintains an inherited perspective that places colors as the focal point of the project giving space and direction. Mullen says “I see my paintings as a doorway for an observer to go deep into a sensorial experience. I hope to create a place for contemplation”. Son of a hobbyist painter, Mullen was born and raised in Glasgow. He attended a Waldorf education-based school which he credits for influencing his visual language. He graduated in fine Arts in 2011 from Gerrit Rietveld Academy and has since, exhibited his work in London, New York, Vancouver, Berlin, and currently in São Paulo.
