MARTIEN MULDER – FROM BLUE TO BLUE

If you happen to be in Amsterdam this fall make sure to look into Kahmann Gallery, featuring works by long-time Last Magazine collaborator Martien Mulder, who spent years exploring the sensitivities of color and finally comes full-circle in her exhibition “From Blue to Blue.”

Magnus Berger: What’s your main inspiration for your work?

Martien Mulder: the quiet strength in all and everything.

MB: Do you see yourself as a portrait, landscape, art, or fashion photographer—or are you interested in a combination of all these things?

MM: it’s absolutely all of the above that i am interested in. All my photographs are a search for the calm, uncluttered beauty around me, the delicately abstract representation of things and life. I am trying to reveal the essence in a simple way. This holds up for portraiture, landscape, art, and fashion.

MB: What was the thought process behind the exhibition “From Blue to Blue”?

MM: The traveling exhibition “From Blue to Blue” is an outtake of ten years of personal work. The specific selection for this show is based on the monochromatic quality of my photographs: the predominant color in each image determines its place in the space. Even though the images have their own individual meanings on the level of representation, they are sorted by their formal values and treated as colors in a color scheme. When entering the gallery space, we see a flow of images on the wall: starting with a blue group, passing by green compositions, warm reds, cool whites, and dense blacks, and ending at a sea of blue tones again. A universe of colors is presented, referencing life itself. The images are mounted onto wooden objects, and the rhythm of their compositions on the wall draws us in as we discover their subtle harmony.

MB: The exhibition works as a journey through color. Was this something that was put together afterwards or did you have this in mind when you took these images?

MM: i have been taking images over the past ten years, and i never thought i would show them this way. But i discovered my own themes only recently, and i started putting the book together, organizing my images by color. I realized how much of my work is monotonal. One color leads to the next. It works in a book, and it works on the wall.

MB: You’ve been making your own handmade books for a while. And now you publish through Blurb. Is this a natural progression for you, instead of seeking a conventional publisher?

MM:Yes it is. Blurb allows you to make one-offs. I design something and i order a copy. I change something and i order a new copy: version #2. It’s amazing, my books are evolving! That’s impossible with conventional publishing.

photography by Martien Mulder. “From Blue to Blue” is on view at Kahmann Gallery, Amsterdam, from September 25 to November 27.

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