Daniel Mullen (Glasgow, Scotland, 1985).
Daniel Mullen graduated in 2011 with a BFA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. Mullen has exhibited internationally; London, Vancouver, New York, Sao Paulo, and recently had his first museum show in Berlin. He will also be participating in two biennial's this year, Ostrale in Dresden and Bienal de Curitiba, Brazil. His work has also been acquired by notable private and corporate collections. Mullen was shortlisted earlier this year for the Aesthetica Art Prize.
By applying glazed layers in combination with hard-edge painted lines, Mullen creates layered images that figuratively communicate abstract concepts. When creating illusionistic forms Mullen can, to some degree, illustrate an abstract idea or phenomenon, turning abstraction on its head. He is driven by a sense that abstract art does not simply reproduce perceived outward reality but can be instead a transference of that which lies beyond our visual comprehension. It's an artistic form -- if one follows Kandinsky's take -- that is the result of "an inner necessity". Mullen creates a complex affect that manages to suggest the incarnation of something grand and vast yet also perhaps just that; a suggestion and not a reality. An illusion, and not the truth. As a devoted craftsman who meticulously creates all of his work without digital or mechanical aids, he still manages to create the impression of reproducibility, which is precisely what he seeks to highlight in an era of mass consumption.
