Splice (detail), acrylic on wall, 200 x 250cm, 2017. Installed at BLAZE XI @ Canberra Contemporary Art Space Gorman House
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Mueller created Splice in the gallery over four days for the eleventh installment of the annual emerging artist exhibition, BLAZE XI, held at Canberra Contemporary Art Space at Gorman House. This piece is the first time one of her airbrushed paintings has been created directly onto the wall. The structure references her previous airbrushed paintings on polyester yet shifts as the viewer navigates the space. Rows of fast-paced loops topographically dance across the canvas in linear compositions where gestural organic abstraction is contrasted with hard-edge geometric abstraction. The coils are confined to rectangular territories that add compositional structure and tension to the work. Featuring ‘frames within frames,’ multiple atmospheres are spliced together. This configuration of optical effects interrupts the continuous lines causing them to visually expand beyond their boarders alluding to windows into multiple dimensions. The clarity of the airbrushed line varies, appearing to move in and out of focus. This generates continually shifting perceptions. The loops have a stitch-like quality with shading applied underneath or on top of the line. Techniques featured include soft colour gradients, areas of atmospheric dappled watercolor-effect and line work on exposed gesso. Mueller’s distinctive colour relationships include dull-pure, dark-light, transparent-opaque, matte-gloss, complementary and simultaneous colour contrasts to differentiate and create depth at the juncture of each visual portal. The variety of hue, saturation and textural effects unite to create an energetic viewing experience.
Curator Sally Brand writes of the piece in the catalogue essay "For her contribution to BLAZE XI, Cat Mueller has created an epic temporary painting using the architectural corner as both a line of connection and interference. Entitled splice, Mueller’s painting is psychedelically comprised of loops, waves and mists of colour broken by straight edges and empty fields. Applied with an airbrush directly to the wall of the gallery, Mueller’s painting is a dizzying series of frames within frames. Urgent and unsettling, physical and sensual, Mueller’s splicing, interlacing, and grafting of colour, line and form has an effect reminiscent of American artist Linda Benglis’s Day-Glo pour paintings that oozed out of an otherwise male dominated formalism of the 1960s. Expansive and embracing, the unique temporality of Mueller’s painting also demands to be experienced in the here and now. It’s not too much longer before the work will be extinguished, hidden forever behind layer upon layer of gallery paint." BLAZE XI @ CCAS (2017) - Catalogue and Essay.
Curator Sally Brand writes of the piece in the catalogue essay "For her contribution to BLAZE XI, Cat Mueller has created an epic temporary painting using the architectural corner as both a line of connection and interference. Entitled splice, Mueller’s painting is psychedelically comprised of loops, waves and mists of colour broken by straight edges and empty fields. Applied with an airbrush directly to the wall of the gallery, Mueller’s painting is a dizzying series of frames within frames. Urgent and unsettling, physical and sensual, Mueller’s splicing, interlacing, and grafting of colour, line and form has an effect reminiscent of American artist Linda Benglis’s Day-Glo pour paintings that oozed out of an otherwise male dominated formalism of the 1960s. Expansive and embracing, the unique temporality of Mueller’s painting also demands to be experienced in the here and now. It’s not too much longer before the work will be extinguished, hidden forever behind layer upon layer of gallery paint." BLAZE XI @ CCAS (2017) - Catalogue and Essay.