About CHRISTOPH MUELLER

Discovery

The Swiss painter and graphic designer Christoph Mueller explores the possibilities of painting in the 21st century.

He takes up motifs and themes from art history and translates them into a contemporary visual language in which color, structure and light become carriers of emotion and memory.

In his works, classical painting and digital processes merge into a captivating unity – between tradition and innovation, craftsmanship and experimentation, past and present.

Mueller is interested in seeing itself: in the moment when perception becomes an image.

His paintings are created from layers of color, gesture, and reflection.

They are not depictions, but rather condensations of experience – resonant spaces in which reality is transformed.

Thus, his works become analogies of life: they show that expression lies not only in the finished work, but in the process of creation – in the rhythmic interplay of control and release, of precision and chance.

Christoph Mueller studied Visual Communication at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

He lives and works in Switzerland and France.

Education

2002 - 2005 ZHAW Arts Management / MAS Arts Management (FH), Zurich University of Applied Sciences.

1976 - 1980 ZHdK Visual Design / Diploma, Zurich University of the Arts.

1975-1976 Preliminary Course in Design, Zurich School of Applied Arts.

Prizes and Awards

1986 Scholarship for visual arts, city of Zurich

1982 Study and work contribution to visual artists, Zurich

1980 Kiefer Hablitzel Art Prize, kieferhablitzel.ch

1979 Scholarship for visual arts, Zurich

1978 Scholarship for visual arts, city of Zurich

Solo Exhibitions (selection)

2019 Sägerei Sedrun GR

2017 teo jakob Löwenbräu, Zurich

2016 Les Clos de Paulilles, Port Vendres, FR

2015 Mas Campy, Cosprons FR

1983 Gallery Wachturm, Zurich

1983 Gallery Art Studio, Vaduz FL

1980 Gallery Handschin, Basel

Group Exhibitions (selection)

2018 Art: Scene Zurich, Kulturfolger, Zurich

1985 Villa at the Aabach, Uster

1985 Swatch International Street Painting, Basel

1979 "Pictures painted into the wind", Zurich

1979 Exhibition Thearena , Basel Land

Works in public collections

1982 Collector's folder with 20 selected prints, Basel Land

1982 Purchase of the city of Zurich

1979 Purchase of the Canton Basel-Land

https://www.sikart.ch/kuenstlerinnen.aspx?id=4003231

Film

1981 Today and After, documentary film 71 min.

www.heuteunddanach.ch

https://vimeo.com/36083940

www.editionpatrickfrey.com/de/books/heute-und-danach-lurker-grand-andre-tschan

www.glow.film

Music

F.d.P 1980 - 1982

1983 -1985 Dressed up Animals

www.discogs.com/Dressed-up-Animals-Dressed-up-Animals-1982/release/1363551

www.definitiv-zuerich.ch/bands/-/id/94/b/dressed_up_animals

About Christoph Mueller

Zurich artist Christoph Mueller (1958) works in the fields of painting, graphics, film and music. He lives and works in Switzerland and France. Mueller's artistic career began with an education at the Zurich University of the Arts, which he completed in 1980 with a diploma in visual design and communication.

Throughout his career, Mueller has been honoured for his artistic talent with various prizes and scholarships, including the Kiefer-Hablitzel Art Prize in 1980 and the City of Zurich Art Scholarship in 1986. In the last ten years Christoph Mueller has increasingly returned to painting. He has created several series of works that have been presented in solo exhibitions.

Anyone familiar with Christoph Mueller’s work will know that his exhibitions usually connect to the sites where they take place in one way or another. His exhibition "Inspiraziuns alpinas" in Sedrun featured paintings with mountain scenes, in Cosprons paintings with motifs from the South of France, and now here in Zurich a specific Zurich motif takes centre stage.

The artist is always drawn to nature, he rarely paints people or man-made objects, so it is not surprising that during his visit to the Kunsthaus Zürich he was inspired not by the works of other painters or by architecture, but by the bouquet of flowers that is always at the centre of the Merzbacher collection. This bouquet looks almost like a sculpture, placed on a pedestal and always extremely pompous. From 31 May to 1 June, the exhibition "It could be about flowers" at the Cigarettenfabrik on Zurich's Sihlquai will show a large number of paintings and prints inspired by the bouquet at the Kunsthaus over the past two years. The artist calls the series "At Heimplatz", a subtle reference to the location of the flowers that inspired him.

Mueller's artistic exploration also includes the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into his creative process. On the one hand, he creates motifs for prints, while on the other, AI's suggestions inspire him to develop his paintings and prints in a different direction. The artist photographs his works and transforms them through AI, creating unique pieces that become series of prints or the basis for paintings. Elements from the past, information from the present and imagination combine to create innovative and visually new works of art.

About

Artist Statement