Heiko Müller
Encyclopedia
Heiko Müller is a German painter
.
as well as in New York City
, Los Angeles
, Seattle, Chicago
, Paris
, Saint Petersburg
and Tartu
. He also curated several exhibitions in Hamburg. He has a design diploma from the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
and is also working as a professional media designer and illustrator. He is living with his wife and his two sons near Hamburg.
s, Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting
, folk art
and contemporary comics
. He gained first attention by combining medieval Christian icons with modern digital art
. His latest work is close to the American lowbrow
and pop surrealism movement. Characteristics of his paintings are animal illustrations with a very dark and apocalyptic mood, often appearing like modern takes on Bosch or Bruegel motifs. In his own words, he's "particularly thrilled by the kind of spiritual terror you find expressed in the paintings of the old Flemish masters, [...] trying to find out what happens when you apply that mood to the serene and harmless world of rural folk art."
Müller's most recent work marks a return to painting after a long period of drawing with coloured pencils, during which he developed special techniques to make the drawings appear like oil painting
s. His preferred media are acrylic and oil on paper and oil on canvas, complemented by pencil drawings.
Müller's art is exhibited and bought almost as often in the USA as in his native Europe.
Group shows (selection):
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
.
Overview
Heiko Müller works as an independent artist. His works have been exhibited in his hometown of HamburgHamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
as well as in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, Seattle, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
and Tartu
Tartu
Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...
. He also curated several exhibitions in Hamburg. He has a design diploma from the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences is an institution of higher education and applied research located in Hamburg, Germany. Formerly known as Fachhochschule Hamburg the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1970...
and is also working as a professional media designer and illustrator. He is living with his wife and his two sons near Hamburg.
Work
Heiko Müller's paintings take their inspiration from such diverse sources as medieval iconIcon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
s, Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting
Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting
Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting represents the 16th century response to Italian Renaissance art in the Low Countries. These artists, who span from the Antwerp Mannerists and Hieronymus Bosch at the start of the century to the late Northern Mannerists such as Hendrik Goltzius and Joachim...
, folk art
Folk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
and contemporary comics
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
. He gained first attention by combining medieval Christian icons with modern digital art
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
. His latest work is close to the American lowbrow
Lowbrow (art movement)
Lowbrow, or lowbrow art, describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. Lowbrow is a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other subcultures. It is also...
and pop surrealism movement. Characteristics of his paintings are animal illustrations with a very dark and apocalyptic mood, often appearing like modern takes on Bosch or Bruegel motifs. In his own words, he's "particularly thrilled by the kind of spiritual terror you find expressed in the paintings of the old Flemish masters, [...] trying to find out what happens when you apply that mood to the serene and harmless world of rural folk art."
Müller's most recent work marks a return to painting after a long period of drawing with coloured pencils, during which he developed special techniques to make the drawings appear like oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
s. His preferred media are acrylic and oil on paper and oil on canvas, complemented by pencil drawings.
Müller's art is exhibited and bought almost as often in the USA as in his native Europe.
Exhibitions
Solo shows:- 1997 Foyer für junge Kunst, Vereinsbank, Hamburg/Harburg
- 2001 “PXP-Guy presents: Black Lines”, Galerie Hinterconti, Hamburg
- 2004 "Legendae Aureae", German Institute for Culture, Tartu (Estonia)
- 2009 "Stay Awake", Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco
Group shows (selection):
- 1997 "Junge Hamburger", with Henning Kles and Till GerhardTill GerhardTill Gerhard is a German artist based in Hamburg.-Life and work:Till Gerhard was born in Hamburg, Germany. He studied at Muthesius Hochschule fur Kunst und Gestaltung, Kiel and the Hochschule fur angewandte Wissenschaften, FB Gestaltung Professor Dieter Glasmacher, Hamburg .Gerhard paints...
, Studio Galerie, Hamburg - 1997 "Experiment Bilderbuch", Stadtmuseum Oldenburg
- 1998 various exhibitions at the Büchergilde Gutenberg in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin.
- 2001 "S.K.A.M.finale", S.K.A.M. Studio, Hamburg
- 2001 “Kopfankopf in AUGENHÖHE”, Kunststück, Hamburg
- 2003 “Tag der Toten”, with Henning Kles and Till Gerhard, Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg
- 2005 "Territory #4" Exhibition & Release Party, OFR Publications, Paris
- 2005 "14 Illustratoren", Galeria Pequeña, Frankfurt am Main
- 2005 "Spezialitäten", Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg
- 2006 "Visual Residue", CB's 313 Gallery, New York
- 2006 "Winged Doom vs. Reeperbahn Rumble", with Marcus Schäfer, Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg
- 2006 "Haare", Galeria Pequeña, Frankfurt am Main
- 2006 "That New Dork Smell ", Toyroom, Sacramento
- 2006 "Beasts", Belle & Wissell, Seattle
- 2006 "Don't Wake Daddy", Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg
- 2006 "NeighborWOOD", Compound Gallery, Portland
- 2007 "The Wurstminster Dog Show", Portland
- 2007 "Charity by Numbers", Los Angeles
- 2007 "Happily Ever After?", Seattle
- 2007 "Art Dorks Collective", Thinkspace Art Gallery, Los Angeles
- 2007 "Art Dorks Squared", The McCaig-Welles Gallery, New York
- 2007 "Rome is Burning/The New School", The Foster Gallery - Haas Fine Arts Center, Eau Claire (Wisconsin)
- 2007 "Don't Wake Daddy II", Feinkunst Krüger & RAUM 21, Hamburg
- 2007 December Charity Show, The Project Gallery, Los Angeles
- 2008 "Deep Pop", Kenneth Chapman Gallery, New Rochelle (New York)
- 2008 "Pop Subversion at Ad Hoc Art", New York
- 2008 "A Cabinet Of Natural Curiosities", Roq La Rue Gallery, Seattle
- 2008 "The World of Urban Contemporary Art", Intoxicated Demons, Berlin
- 2008 "Art Dorks Collective", DVA Gallery, Chicago
- 2008 "4 Faces of Foofaraw" with Femke HiemstraFemke Hiemstra-Work:Femke started as a illustrator for Dutch magazines but since her paintings became too elaborate for commissions she now mostly works as a fine artist. Her work is usually categorized as pop surrealist or American lowbrow Art. Her mixed media works are made with delicate layers of acrylic...
, Fred Stonehouse and Anthony Pontius, Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg - 2008 "10 Jahre Feinkunst Krüger", Westwerk, Hamburg
- 2008 "The Inaugural Show", T & P Fine Art, Philadelphia
- 2008 "Don't Wake Daddy III", Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg
- 2008 X-MAS 08, Galleri Christoffer Egelund, Copenhagen
- 2009 "Mixed Palette" at the Recoat Gallery, Glasgow
- 2009 "Superschool" (curated by Lola) at Copro Nason Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
- 2009 "OCHO número atómico" at ROJO Artspace Barcelona
- 2009 "Boarding Gat"e (curated by Alexandra Kollaros) at K-art, Athens
- 2009 "Kunst im Tresor", Munich
- 2009 "Urban Art" at Galleri Jan|Zen, Aalborg, Denmark
- 2011 "Shades of Ray" Color Ink Book's 3rd Anniversary show at WWA gallery Culver City, CA
Publications
- 2002 Lodown #34 (Berlin)
- 2003 Elegy #12/03 (Paris)
- 2004 1x1 Pixel-Based Illustration & Design (Barcelona)
- 2004 Freewave (Booth Clibborn Editions, London)
- 2005 Freistil 2 - Best of European Commercial Illustration
- 2005 Defrag #7 (Italy)
- 2005 Territory #4 - The Mood of Gothic (BigBrosWorkshop, Malaysia)
- 2006 The Darkening Garden (Payseur & Schmidt, Seattle)
- 2006 Beasts! (Fantagraphics, Seattle)
- 2007 dpi Magazine (Taiwan)
- 2007 LOW Magazine (Germany)
- 2007 a5 Magazine (Israel)
- 2007 LetGo Magazine (Los Angeles)
- 2007 Paper Tiger Comix #4 (Paper Tiger, UK)
- 2007 Empty Magazine (Australia)
- 2007 Castle Magazine #11 (Germany)
- 2007 ISM Autumn Issue v. 04 i. 03 (Los Angeles)
- 2007 ARGH! (Valencia)
- 2007 Jitter Magazin (Berlin)
- 2007 Cimaise - Ceci est un magazine d'ars (Paris)
- 2007 Belio Magazine (Madrid)
- 2007 D/Zines (LANDA Designer, Münster)
- 2008 Stirato (Rome)
- 2008 Underground Culture from all Parts of the World (Shoeisha, Japan)
- 2008 NOVUM (Munich)
- 2008 Heiko Müller - Stay Awake (ROJO, Barcelona)
- 2008 Pep! (Hungary)
- 2008 Good vs Evil #1 (London)
- 2008 AURORA Artzine (Germany)
- 2008 Color-Ink-Book San Diego 2008 Comic-Con Edition, The Brothers Washburn (Oceanside, CA)
- 2008 Proteus Mag #5 (PDF Magazine)
- 2008 Spooky Calendar 2009 by Die Gestalten Verlag (Berlin)
- 2008 Pocketful (Istanbul)
- 2008 The Upset: Young Contemporary Art, Die Gestalten Verlag (Berlin)
- 2008 Color-Ink-Book #1 APE Edition, The Brothers Washburn (Oceanside, CA)
- 2008 Good vs. Evil #2 (London)
- 2009 VIZIOmag #3 (E-Zine)
- 2009 a5 Magazine - Childhood Ausgabe (Israel)
- 2009 La Cruda #2 (Barcelona)
- 2009 Juxtapoz #98 (San Francisco)
- 2009 6M1P #11 (Toulouse)
- 2009 BG Magazine #41 Animal Edition (Ecuador)
- 2009 ROJO, Project OCHO, Número Atómico (Barcelona)
- 2009 Boarding Gate Catalogue, (Athens)
- 2009 Jitter Magazin (Berlin)
- 2009 Semi Permanent 2009 (Sydney)
- 2009 DODOS (Seoul)
- 2009 La Cruda #3 (Barcelona)
- 2009 W Korea - Green Edition (Korea)
- 2009 100% O2 Magazine #1 (Beijing)
- 2009 Good vs. Evil #3 (London)
- 2009 a5 Magazine - Hero Edition (Israel)
- 2009 The Upbeats - Ghost Radio/1968 12" Covergestaltung (New Zealand)
- 2009 The Ark (Argentina)
- 2009 EPOS VISA Card (Japan)
- 2009 A (dos puntos) (Santiago)