The Construction Behind the Seen
In a world more and more saturated with quick pictures and fleeting impressions, Daniel Mullen’s work invitations a slower, extra attentive type of seeing. Born in Glasgow in 1985 and now working in Amsterdam, Mullen engages with portray, sculpture, and set up to look at how notion is fashioned not as a static occasion however as an ongoing, relational course of. His artwork isn’t content material to merely depict; as a substitute, it builds perceptual constructions that shift and breathe alongside the viewer’s presence. Mild, shade, kind, and materials don’t function as remoted entities in his work, however as brokers in a fastidiously calibrated choreography that solely completes itself by encounter.
Mullen’s apply is deeply grounded in a phenomenological understanding of how the physique interacts with house and picture. He treats notion not as a indifferent act however as one thing lived—topic to time, movement, and proximity. Every art work turns into a degree of activation, the place the viewer is invited to take part in meaning-making by their motion and gaze. This insistence on co-authorship units his work aside; notion isn’t passively obtained however actively formed in actual time. The boundary between object and observer turns into fluid, producing a shared experiential discipline the place every second of wanting reshapes the art work anew.
Fairly than illustrating these concepts, Mullen constructs them immediately into the supplies and rhythms of his apply. His work doesn’t exist outdoors of expertise; it’s expertise made visible. The repetition of kinds, the layering of pigment, the interaction of reflective and opaque surfaces—all serve to create a mutable visible structure. The acquainted rectangle recurs as each a constraint and a possibility, housing complexities of rhythm and deviation inside its body. It turns into much less a window and extra a proposition: what if imaginative and prescient weren’t about readability, however about contingency? What if artwork may serve not as a illustration, however as a web site for relational consciousness?
Daniel Mullen: Portray as Constructed Notion
From his earliest works, Mullen approached portray not merely as image-making, however as a technique for constructing perceptual environments. His luminous work on uncooked linen, composed of delicately layered acrylics, revealed spatial depth not by perspective, however by the buildup of sunshine. This early interval marked a major shift from depiction to development, the place every aircraft of shade and every geometric rhythm was a deliberate act of shaping how house could possibly be seen. These work didn’t illustrate quantity; they generated it, evoking a way of weightless construction that hovered between flatness and kind.
Influenced by the veil-painting method related to Rudolf Steiner, Mullen developed a sensitivity to how transparency, rhythm, and time intersect within the portray course of. Skinny washes of pigment have been utilized repeatedly, creating surfaces that appeared to glow from inside. This strategy, whereas technical in its origin, grew to become a conceptual technique as effectively. Limiting his palette to a triad—phthalo turquoise, quinacridone magenta, and first yellow—Mullen found an expressive flexibility inside restraint. Inside this decreased chromatic vary, he orchestrated tonal variations that shifted primarily based on the viewer’s place, emphasizing notion as dynamic reasonably than fastened.
The logic of his compositions step by step started to shift, shifting away from static grids towards extra open, responsive kinds. In current works such because the Helix collection, Mullen reconfigures geometric order into sequences that bend and rotate, giving the impression of motion inside stillness. These work really feel much less constructed and extra like techniques in flux. The grid not anchors however animates, providing a visible rhythm that breathes and transforms. On this section of his work, Mullen describes a means of dismantling and reconstruction—of permitting geometry to fragment and reform, reflecting the instability and subjectivity of notion itself.
Materials Encounters with Motion
Mullen’s engagement with sculpture and set up extends his painterly issues right into a extra spatial and interactive dimension. Working with supplies comparable to mirrored metal, wooden, and porcelain, he constructs objects that reply to gentle and motion, creating environments the place notion turns into each unstable and embodied. These sculptural works are usually not static kinds however energetic surfaces—areas the place reflections distort, shadows shift, and the viewer’s place alters the that means of what’s seen. In these items, notion turns into much less about recognition and extra about steady negotiation between physique, object, and house.
A current milestone on this route was the 2025 exhibition Nada Isolado — Nothing in Isolation at Zipper Galeria in São Paulo. There, Mullen assembled a constellation of works—work, sculptural constructions, and reliefs—that interacted inside a unified spatial composition. The recurring rectangular motif served not as a boundary however as a connector, linking the elements by shared geometry and relational placement. Mild reflections bounced from metal to canvas, shadows spilled throughout surfaces, and the structure of the gallery itself grew to become a part of the work. Viewers weren’t observers however members, their presence actively shaping the relationships among the many works.
This rising spatial openness is especially evident in collection like Responsive Varieties and Liminal Suspension, the place Mullen pushes his structural vocabulary past the two-dimensional body. Wood planes stack and pivot, mirrored surfaces seize and deform, and transparency creates visible ambiguity. Every materials introduces a distinct rhythm, a singular tempo of engagement. Regardless of the precision of development, these works stay responsive—delicate to the shifting interaction of sunshine, materials, and the shifting viewer. On this approach, Mullen’s sculptural apply reaffirms his central inquiry: how does notion take kind, not in isolation, however by interplay?
Daniel Mullen: The Temporality of Seeing
Throughout all media, Mullen maintains a rigorous give attention to time as a part of notion. His works are by no means skilled unexpectedly; as a substitute, they reveal themselves step by step, because the viewer strikes, lingers, and appears once more. Transparency, each literal and metaphorical, turns into a method of participating with temporality. Layered colours shift in depth with proximity, reflections develop or collapse primarily based on angle, and constructions reorganize themselves by the passage of time. This durational high quality underlines his dedication to a apply that privileges presence and attentiveness over spectacle or immediacy.
His means of development mirrors this emphasis on period. Every portray unfolds by a gradual, deliberate sequence of actions—layer upon layer of pigment, line after line of geometry, every responding to the earlier gesture. The presence of the hand stays seen, not in expressive prospers, however within the delicate rhythms of repetition and deviation. There’s a meditative depth to this strategy, a quiet insistence that that means isn’t delivered however found, rising by consideration and time. This consideration to the temporality of creating feeds immediately into the temporality of viewing, making a loop between artist and viewers that continues to resonate lengthy after the primary look.
In his most up-to-date work, Mullen appears to be embracing a fair higher openness. Buildings loosen, surfaces fracture, and compositions invite continuous reinterpretation. Reflection is not confined to mirrored surfaces however turns into a mode of considering: an oscillation between kind and formlessness, between seeing and sensing. Notion turns into not a conclusion however a course of, a lived engagement with shifting situations. By refusing to repair that means, Mullen’s work holds house for the unstable, the relational, and the shared. In doing so, he affords a compelling reply to his personal guiding query: what if seeing itself could possibly be a type of relation?
