current

upcoming

history

 

 

Karin Apollonia Müller statement | biography | links + press

born Heidelberg, Germany 1963

Karin Apollonia Müller studied design, photography, and film, at the University of Essen where she received a Masters degree with honors in photography in 1992. Since 1995, she has lived in the Western U.S. and Europe, teaching and participating in residencies in China, New Mexico, Italy, and Germany, as well as winning numerous awards.

Müller's first completely realized body of work and monograph, entitled Angels in Fall (1995-1998), is a series of large scale color photographs of urban Los Angeles and Western oceanside landscapes. These quiet observations investigate the space where people and urban structures coincide with nature. Her powerful photographs are low in contrast with muted palettes which Müller believes "evoke things which are beyond visible." By subtly positioning the human figure, actual or implied, within a complex landscape, Müller evokes a profound sense of displacement in her photographs. These evocative compositions possess a haunting potency. As a foreigner, Müller expresses her "visitor" status in Los Angeles with a sense of alienation and beauty. The artist's interest in the intersection of the natural landscape with urbanization, evident her projects Bunkerscapes (2003), is a hot topic with environmentalists and city planners. In her hands, these issues transcend any analytic framework, becoming eternal and universal musings.

In 2009, Nazraeli Press published a second monograph by Müller entitled On Edge, a follow-up project to Angels in Fall that documents the artist's decreasing detachment from her surroundings in Los Angeles. She completed her project Timber Grove in the same year, a series that artistically juxtaposes the human connection and opposition to nature.


Timber Cove 2009 [view images]


On Edge 2006-08 [view images]


Bunkerscapes 2003 [view images]


Angels in Fall 1995-1998 [view images]


Seascapes 1996-2002 [view images]