This series was shown at Canberra Contemporary Art Space Manuka from 2-12 March 2017. This solo show was awarded as part of Mueller's CCAS Residency through the 2015 ANU School of Art Emerging Artist Support Scheme. The artist would like to thank to the CCAS team David Broker, Sabrina Baker and Alexander Boynes for this opportunity and their continuing support and to fellow-resident Josh Owen for lighting the exhibition.
Morph is a series of twenty small-scale acrylic paintings featuring modulated colour. They use a dense dotting method rooted in the techniques of the Pointillist’s, who mixed colour within the eye rather than on the pallet. However, unlike their scenes of daily life in the 20th Century, these paintings feature abstract atmospheric fields that emit their own otherworldly light source. The works are also analogous to Impressionist and Pointillist paintings through their use of small quick strokes, lack of colour mixing or layering, and partially exposed white grounds that create a sense of transient dappled light. Each painting has small variations in colour or composition that mutate from the previous.
Mueller explores the power of colour relationships by using a minimal composition and a restricted palette of two sets of five corresponding colours. Within these limitations, seemingly infinite atmospheric colour effects can be created. Mueller’s distinctive and intuitive colour scheme includes a balance of dull-pure, dark-light, transparent-opaque, matte-gloss and complimentary contrasts. Simultaneous contrast, where the hue of one colour is altered according to the surrounding colours, and other chromatic devices operate optically to enliven colour distinctively in each work. The two colour sets converge in a gradient that is enclosed in a geometric zone, or ‘static field,’ surrounded by an opposing gradient. The occasional subtraction of one or multiple colours in the scheme, as well as the percentage and placement of a colour, demonstrates how slight changes in the overall hue greatly impact the mood of the painting.