Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022
Jill Mueller
UK
www.jillmueller.com
About
I make art that explores what it means to be human – the
inner and outer stories that make us. I have a specific interest
in health, identity and our relationship to nature.
The materials and techniques I use change with each
project, responding to whatever the work calls for: from
hands-on approaches that include printmaking, alternative
photographic techniques, embroidery, painting and
installation to digitally based work with archive imagery,
creative writing and book design. I have several long-term
projects in development that engage with personal stories
from ordinary lives. These begin with interviews, writing, and
building visual archives. The work takes shape slowly as a
story unfolds, and these projects take years to evolve.
I believe in the power of art to connect people – to each other
and the world around them – and transform lives. The creative
process and the viewer’s experience are as important to me
as any finished artwork.
I’m a London-based artist who was born in the US and lived
across the globe. London has been my home since 2010.
Finding my voice
I came to Arteles with a documentary archive about a
1954 mountain rescue co-led by my grandfather. I hoped
to engage the material within a quiet environment where
I could also have my own experience with cold, snow and
long periods in nature. Each day I spent a few hours walking
the forest, noting the qualities of snow in different light and
temperatures, how it felt, the sounds it made under my feet.
I spent my time observing the natural world around me while
also revisiting a very different nature experience through
70-year-old writings and photographs. Over an extended
period of silence in my third week, I drew on everything I’d
taken in to explore an imagined winter experience through
a short story. Something cracked open within me in that
process—as if my body knew that I needed to live my own
(even imagined) story before telling someone else’s. Through
this experience and conversations with fellow residents, I
found a new way into the mountain rescue project and began
to strengthen my voice within it. I became more playful with
the material, stitching and gold-leafing over archive images
and writing short creative texts based in my research. I left
Arteles with many beginnings, threads of experience that I
am weaving together in new ways as I continue to work with
the material back in my studio in London.