PRESS RELEASES

January 25th - March 15th

JEFF MUHS | The Physical Record of Everything

Dallas, TX. January 4th, 2020 — Christopher Martin Gallery of Dallas, proudly presents to the Dallas Art community the contemporary work of Jeff Muhs. The exhibition, titled THE PHYSICAL RECORD OF EVERYTHING, features Muhs’ most recent abstract paintings in the gallery’s new wing dedicated to presenting contemporary art. This is the first solo exhibition for Jeff Muhs in Dallas, and on this occasion the gallery will hold an opening reception for the artist on Saturday January 25th, from 5-7 pm. The exhibition will continue trough March 15, 2020. 

In his paintings, Jeff Muhs exploits and explores natural physical processes such as optics, chaos, gravity, and fluid dynamics. Through the manipulation of these processes, Muhs creates dynamic abstract compositions, using a highly gestural application of medium where often multiple paintings occupy the same canvas plane. In his unique process, Muhs uses improvised brushes to apply black oil paint over a highly prepared surface, thus creating a confident realm of gestural expression with a polished quality. The color fields that Muhs applies next, conquer the background’s randomness with the quiet presence of color. As the turbulence ceases, new subtleties emerge thus revealing the true beauty of the work. Mastering observation, chance and intention, Muhs creates a pure abstract landscape, one that captures the infinite abstract possibilities of the interaction of matter in a natural setting. 

Muhs was born in Southampton, NY in 1966. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1988. Muhs pursues his aesthetics in several artistic disciplines, including the techniques of oil painting; encaustic; and sculpture. His work can be found in several private and public collections, namely the Guild Hall Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hunter Museum, Ward Museum, Federal Savings and Loan Bank, Caesars Palace, Time Warner, Inc., and Cantor Fitzgerald among others. Jeff Muhs lives and works in Southampton, NY. 

“THE PHYSICAL RECORD OF EVERYTHING”

‘In Abstract painting I am presented with an immeasurable world of possibilities.  In my endeavor to explore that realm, color and form reveal themselves, explained by the nature of creation itself. As I navigate and respond to the information received or imagined, the paintings become a physical record of my explorations. Manifestations of my encounters with the infinite.’ - Jeff Muhs

Throughout its history, the different roles that landscape art has fulfilled, explain the ever present allure of the genre. It was in the Renaissance, with the birth of Romanticism, that nature received an important metaphysical quality. Nature viewed through its shifting atmosphere, was a place of possible transformation of the spirit. As Jeff Muhs is inspired by the Long Island open landscape, Plein-air artists from the 1800s were inspired by the flickering of light off water, the changing colors of the sky, the miraculous multitude of colors lines and forms in nature. Plein-air painting contributed directly to Impressionism’s focus on capturing the qualities of light. Later Post-Impressionism’s experimentations with color and movement attempted to convey emotion rather than reality, a demonstration of a landscape painting as the perfect vehicle to convey a “sense” of a subject rather than its precise image. Early abstract artists raised the stature of landscape painting by celebrating vivid, arbitrary color choices that boldly rejected the realistic palette of the depicted scene thus questioning the boundary between representation and pure abstraction. In this way, Abstraction completely transformed the conceptual definition of what landscapes can be, and the ways that they might be explored in contemporary art, as embraced by Muhs in his work.

Abstract Art is often seen as carrying a moral dimension, in that it can be seen to stand for virtues such as order, purity, simplicity and spirituality. Artists in the 20th century pondered that abstractions can be like music, in that art’s effects should be created by pure patterns of form, color and line. Abstraction has allowed contemporary painters total freedom to explore new perspectives expanding the conceptual boundaries of how an artist’s surrounding landscape might be depicted. But Nature, as a setting onto which today’s and future artists would reflect their ideas, will never fall out of fashion. In this tradition, Jeff Muhs explores and distills his unique observations and processes for the creation of pure abstract landscapes, thus forming a true physical record that embodies the evolution of the painting traditions that preceded them.