Lynn Mueller 2013
For 54 years I have been making photographs with the same 35mm format camera and a single lens. I look for irony, poignancy, and metaphor and am interested in translucency, layers, and perforation of surfaces, veiled views, and glimpses of hidden worlds. Frames within frames, doors, windows, gates, and mirrors are recurring actors on my visual stage.
I am fascinated by photography’s ability to consider and express the passage of time by stopping it or to suggest the past or future in one captured fraction of a second. I am interested in how a photograph may conjure or emphasize a subject by its very absence from the image. The edges of the frame are as important to me as the middle, and what I choose to leave out of the frame is as crucial to the meaning and content as what I choose to leave in. Therefore, I compose very carefully in the camera and always print the full frame.
Ultimately my work is a desire to recognize the unseen. That is, I seek to discover in the mundane a fragment of the world that has been looked at but not perceived. I want to allow the viewer a moment’s pause to see what is normally so easily missed. My work uses light, texture, gesture, geometry, juxtapositions, and the play of scale and space within the frame. By isolating and combining objects I can reveal their overlooked importance or suggest new meanings.
The images that I make allow me to pose questions for which there are myriad possible stories and ideally make the viewer pause and ponder rather than know with certainty.
Publications:
19 Views of Paris 2011 (designed 2002)
Billboards 2010
Legs Mostly Walking 2009
Exhibitions:
Blackbird of Calistoga - Solo Show Sept28th - November 2019
ASmithGallery, Johnson City, TX “portal” Sept.6th - Oct 20th
Berkeley Civic Center Juried Annual March 1 2019 - 2020
Berkeley Civic Center Juried Annual October 2016 -September 2017
Reflections & Shadows, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Feb 17th–March 26th 2017
Berkeley Civic Center Juried Annual October 2015 -September 2016
New Photography Inspired by the Paul Sack Collection, Berkeley Art Center September 9 2015 - November 22 2015
Chairs, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, August 7th – September 13, 2015
Pictures, Featuring, ProArts Gallery November 2014
Capture of Life, Joyce Gordon Gallery July 2014
Berkeley Civic Center Juried Annual June 2014 –July 2015
Array, Berkeley Art Center Dec. 2013 –Jan. 2014
Repeat Performance, Fall Show, October – November 2013
Transport: Where We Go From Here…Pro Arts, Jan. –Feb. 2013
Dis/Order, Pro Arts Juried Annual December 2012 – January 2013
Berkeley Civic Center Juried Annual April 2012- April 2013
Wonder, Berkeley Art Center Dec. 2012 –Jan. 2013
Essentia 66 Photographs Solo Exhibition Nov. 5 - Dec 5. 2011
Green, Berkeley Art Center 2010-2011
Berkeley Arts Festival 2009
Pro Arts Juried Annual 2008
Pro Arts Juried Annual 2007
New Visions: Introductions 2006, Pro Arts
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Art Institute
Collections:
Chicago Art Institute
Getty Art Museum
MOMA, N.Y.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Art Institute
City of Berkeley Art Commission.
Private Collections
Education:
Residency, Kala Institute Residency 2011
San Francisco Center for The Book.
San Francisco Art Institute BFA, Photography 1972
Pratt Institute, 1967 – 1970