POLE – Thomas Müller

Thomas Müller – POLE

The exhibition title POLE for the new exhibition by Thomas Müller (* 1959, Frankfurt am Main) describes the tension that defines his graphic work. Poles work here on various levels, be it the relationship between line and surface, order and chaos, emptiness and abundance of light and dark. These are opposites that characterize and catalyze his work. Thomas Müller has focused on drawing since the 1990s. He understands his work as in a state of flux, there is no isolation, no series that is ended, but a continuously growing space for encounters, for lines and surfaces that enter into dialogue, in the individual sheet, and in the relationship of several works to one another. We can be particularly aware of this in the small A4 formats, as they are presented in the typical Müller hanging in the hallway of Galerie Sturm. Developed in the context of his exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bonn in 2003, the gaps are still decisive today: Free spaces that emphasize the individual effect and at the same time enable an overview.

Thomas Müller puts it this way: “Movements that oscillate between contradicting or complementary poles open a space, the open space of the drawing, the space into which one can work.” This space, the sheet, becomes in his work Experimental field in which he works, seeks, and finds with various media. In doing so, he restricts himself to recurring formal and medial basic elements, be it the fixed format and the typical and less typical drawing means such as pencil, ink, copier, ballpoint pen, chalk, or lacquer – the result, however, remains open as in the experiment.

In his latest works with silver pen on ink-acrylic background in the skylight room, poles also play an important role in the single sheet, so the nodes, in which the lines are bundled, structure the image design. The collage of sheets separated once horizontally and once vertically results in new references and constellations in the individual work. Lines seem to run from one pole to the other and yet point along the edge to the materiality of the drawing. The poetry of form and its made-up are inextricably linked in Thomas Müller’s work. Henri Matisse once claimed that “drawing […] is taking possession. Each line has to correspond to a different line, which forms its counterpart, just as you hug something with both arms. ”This is how the physically emotional aspect of the drawing finds its expression, because form and gesture, thought and movement are so closely linked here as in no other medium.

Galerie Sturm_Pressemitteilung_ThomasMueller