{"id":9,"date":"2017-05-07T19:04:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-07T19:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mieves.info\/?page_id=9"},"modified":"2026-08-17T13:55:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T13:55:05","slug":"artist-statement","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/?page_id=9","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Poratit_1_2026.jpg\" alt=\"Poratit_1_2026\" itemprop=\"image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Photography: Axel Wierdemann<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Christian Mieves is a painter and academic based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. For over 20 years, his work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the UK, Spain, Mexico, Switzerland and Germany. He has also published extensively on contemporary art, with a particular focus on issues of visibility, image formation, and the nature of the artistic process, including contributions to\u00a0<em>Turps Banana<\/em>\u00a0(2014) and the\u00a0<em>Journal of Contemporary Painting<\/em>\u00a0(2018).<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His paintings invite an engagement with forms that are unstable, transitional, and resistant to fixed representation. The openness of both the shapes and the painting process allows the works to exist in a provisional state, always in flux, never fully resolved. This sense of instability resonates at a time when images are increasingly standardized, instantly available, and automatically generated.<\/h2>\n<p>Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include Museum Schlosspark, Bad Kreuznach, Germany (2026); Rheinland-Pfalz Triennale, Trier, Germany (2026); M54, Basel (2026); Galerie Anja Edith Brinckmann, Basel (2026); Terrace Gallery, London (2025); Frankfurt Art Fair (2025); Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, UK (2025); and Kleines Atelier im Gro\u00dfen Garten, Dresden (2025).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DcjQKp0E6XU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen title=\"DIE PR\u00c4ZISE UNEINDEUTIGKEITCHRISTIAN MIEVES im Gespr\u00e4ch mit Astrid Bierschenk\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Die Pr\u00e4zise Uneindeutigkeit<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Christian Mieves im Gespr\u00e4ch mit Astrid Bierschenk<br \/>\n2026 Projektraum M54 in Basel<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PRODUKTION &amp; SCHNITT:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Astrid Bierschenk astrid-bierschenk.com<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">KAMERA: Axel Wierdemann<\/p>\n<p>\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6TjTptFZPY4?si=JCZAHJRECefbJnor\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1>The Process of Making<br \/>\nDocumentary, 2025 (Excerpt)<\/h1>\n<p>Rory McDermid (Editing and Sound)<br \/>\nLena Juhe-Gutierrez (Cinematography)<br \/>\nMaria Eversden Aguilar (Director)<br \/>\nKyra McGregor (Producer)<\/p>\n<h1>Podcast<\/h1>\n<p>What happens when the centre loses its fixed meaning and suddenly the peripheries also move into the centre?<\/p>\n<p>In this episode of CULTURA, Michel Sperlich talks to the artist Christian Mieves about his exhibition \u2018\u00dcberall ist Mitte\u2019 at the Museum Schlosspark in Bad Kreuznach. The starting point is an idea put forward by the philosopher Giordano Bruno: the universe has no fixed centre \u2013 the centre can be anywhere. [in German]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1>Christian Mieves: The Contaminated Image<\/h1>\n<p>An angel intercedes in Abraham\u2019s attempted slaughter of Isaac, the source image veiled by painterly gestures; a mother, absorbed in the act of tending to her son, is partially dissolved by creamy gestures and wet-into-wet slippages; the sensuous curves of Boucher\u2019s nude melt into deliquescence: the chaise longue rendered as a viscous slick of colour. Christian Mieves\u2019 recent paintings draw upon a variety of art-historical sources; others draw upon the broader field of photographic imagery, which includes disposable everyday objects. All of these paintings, however, are subject to a particular kind of treatment. They exemplify what I term the contaminated image: this process is at work on the painting surface, where the source image is always subtly modified through the painted gesture. The contamination of form can work across to the level of content: the painting mentioned at the outset, entitled <em>Messenger<\/em> (2012), recalls Rembrandt\u2019s <em>Abraham and Isaac<\/em> (1634), but the viewer might also construe the image as an Annunciation, while the posture of the prostrate Isaac recalls scenes of the Lamentation. Sustaining this ambiguity is at the heart of Mieves\u2019 practice.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/21s-224x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The materiality of Mieves\u2019 paint surfaces vary, but they tend towards the fluid, avoiding an overly dense sense of pigment. The painterliness of the surface does not reflect a desire for spontaneity, however: although Mieves\u2019 paintings suggest rapidity of execution, they do not suggest rapid conception. Instead, the works gives the sense of careful deliberation. Mark-making here is not an index of expression, where the traces of paint are irrevocably tied to the artist\u2019s sensations. Instead, the registration of the mark, and its emphasis upon material facture, explicitly foregrounds the contingency of the image. The continual adjustments and elisions of the surface create the sense of an image perpetually in flux. Subject to the transformations of the painted mark, the image is opened up to a process of potential corruption or contamination. Through this process, the image is simultaneously disguised and revealed, creating a polarity of distance and proximity: the material surface of the painting contrasts with the elusiveness of the referent.<\/p>\n<p>This play of distance and proximity betrays Mieves\u2019 ambivalent attitude towards the preservation and recollection of the image. Charles Baudelaire wrote in the \u2018Salon of 1846\u2019 that \u2018Memory is the great criterion of art; art is the mnemotechny of the beautiful.\u2019 Referring to Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix\u2019s <em>Barque of Dante<\/em> (1822), which successfully assimilated Theodore G\u00e9ricault\u2019s <em>Raft of the Medusa<\/em> (1819), Baudelaire claimed that painting relied upon the artist\u2019s successful recollection and transmission of painting\u2019s precedents. For this recollection to take place, requires an acknowledgment of tradition. The emergence of Modernism, however, upturned tradition\u2019s stability, rendering its contingency more salient. With the emergence of Edouard Manet, Baudelaire discerned the intimations of painting\u2019s \u2018decrepitude.\u2019 Here the citation of previous art-historical imagery became simultaneously more overt, and more fragmented: <em>morceaux<\/em>, rather than <em>tableaux<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This process has been exacerbated by Postmodernism, especially the digital era. Tradition has been further confounded, to the extent that it can be said to exist at all. During the era of modernism, the repudiation of tradition nonetheless implicitly acknowledged its authority. Photographic reproduction dispersed this tradition: the waning of aura theorised by Walter Benjamin was belatedly adopted by theorists of Postmodernism in the 1970s and 1980s. The new condition was theorised in conjunction with the \u2018death\u2019 of painting. The availability of reproducible imagery was said to lend itself most suitably to strategies of appropriation, with photography and the ready-made taking precedence over the medium of painting. Photographic imagery elided the sense of here-ness and there-ness which lay behind modernist ideals of presence. However, the medium of photography has itself been superseded by new digital technologies. Since digital technology now allows photography itself to be altered, the distinction between painting\u2019s <em>invenzione<\/em> and photography\u2019s indexicality has been blurred. Painting, then, is still well-placed to negotiate with this visual culture in ways that theorists have largely overlooked.<\/p>\n<p>The medium of painting can both visualise and engage with processes of \u2018contamination. The viscosity of the surface in Mieves\u2019 painting provides a counterpart to the permanence with the imagery signifies, whether through painting, sculpture or photography. Modern painting could no longer abide the representational mode. However, despite the radical changes brought about by the turn to abstraction, the locus of permanence shifted from the subject matter represented to the tangible, concrete sensation which painting afforded the viewer. The surfaces of Mieves\u2019 paintings, on the other hand, acknowledge the inevitability of erosion and the impermanence of things. The oily slicks of paint suggest the despoliation of nature which is the counterpart of the clean, efficient utopia envisioned by modernity. The space within his paintings is also transient: the brushmarks sustain the porosity of the boundaries between images themselves. This interest in transitional spaces has been a consistent interest in his work, especially in relation to the beach as an interstitial space.<\/p>\n<p>The digital bank of imagery which is now at our fingertips has externalised the memory of the past, greatly expanding the Baudelaire\u2019s mnemotechny of the beautiful. Despite its breadth and diversity, and the changes it has brought about in our conception of visual culture, it still functions to preserve and record our visual experiences of the world. Through the material engagement with the image, Mieves\u2019 work explores its porosity potential contamination in its dispersed condition. But at the heart of his work is an attitude of ambivalence. Despite the contamination of the image, Mieves\u2019 work also acts to preserve it through the act of painting: the image is simultaneously subject to erosion yet preserved in memory.<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Moonie,\u00a0June 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li>Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival 2022\/ Illustration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edinburghspanishfilmfestival.com\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LINK<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Corridor 8: Glaucus and Scylla: <\/strong>A Collaborative Painting Project,\u00a0by <a href=\"https:\/\/corridor8.co.uk\/article\/glaucus-and-scylla-a-collaborative-painting-project\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Christie Yung-hei Chan (23.06.2022)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CYOaqpqImm-\/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Contemporary British Painting<\/strong> \u00a0(Jan 2022)<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CYOaqpqImm-\/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Link<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Conversations in Painting 2019<\/strong>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conversationsinpainting.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/www.conversationsinpainting.co.uk<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung. 10 Oct 2017, Marianne Hoffmann.<\/li>\n<li>Documentation by Wolfgang Schallon of the Vernissage of the Exhibition\u00a0Abstrakter Gegenstand &#8211;\u00a0Neue Malerei von Christian Mieves,\u00a0Freitag 6 Oktober 2017, 18-21 Uhr at PENG Mainz.<\/li>\n<li>Christian Mieves: The Contaminated Image\u00a0Stephen Moonie,\u00a0June 2013.<\/li>\n<li>&#8216;Expoliador de Conciencias&#8217;,\u00a0El Progreso, Spanish Newspaper, 11 September 2010.Angeles M. Maira.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/artuk.org\/discover\/artworks\/schoolboys-45830\/view_as\/grid\/search\/keyword:mieves\/page\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art UK \/\u00a0UK\u2019s public art collections\u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.southsquarecentre.co.uk\/files\/christian-interview.mp3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Christian Mieves in conversation with Fran Coldrick from BCB radio \/ Nov 2009<\/a><\/li>\n<li>La Voz de Galicia, 1 September, 2010, Bego\u00f1a G. Rielo.<\/li>\n<li>El Progreso, 2 September 2010, Jaureguizar.<\/li>\n<li>Exeter Contemporary Open, Catalogue, \u00a0September 2008.<\/li>\n<li>The Beach as a liminal space.\u00a0Interview with Christian Mieves about the\u00a0exhibition &#8216;On the Edge&#8217; in Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, CDMX\u00a0(Agustin Villalpando \/ Enkidu Magazine), Nov 2008.<\/li>\n<li>The Times, The Knowledge, July 29 -August 4, 2006. John Russell Taylor<\/li>\n<li>La Voz de Galicia, Spanish Newspaper, Spain, August 2004.<\/li>\n<li>La Voz de Galicia, Spanish Newspaper, Spain, August 2004. Raquel Rodriguez.<\/li>\n<li>El Progreso, Spanish Newspaper, Spain, August 2004.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_1311\" style=\"width: 1330px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1311\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/IMG_0963.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1320\" height=\"755\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1311\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Basler Zeitung 1 April 2026<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Corridor 8: Glaucus and Scylla: <\/strong>A Collaborative Painting Project,\u00a0by <a href=\"https:\/\/corridor8.co.uk\/article\/glaucus-and-scylla-a-collaborative-painting-project\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Christie Yung-hei Chan (23.06.2022)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/corridor8.co.uk\/article\/glaucus-and-scylla-a-collaborative-painting-project\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/glaucus1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"288\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CYOaqpqImm-\/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Contemporary British Painting<\/strong> \u00a0(Jan 2022)<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CYOaqpqImm-\/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Link<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Conversations in Painting, online catalogue<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/conversationsinpainting\/docs\/cip_mk2_catalogue_2020__issuu_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/issuu.com\/conversationsinpainting\/docs\/cip_mk2_catalogue_2020__issuu_<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Screenshot-2020-05-12-at-15.39.12-212x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"282\" height=\"400\" \/> <a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/conversationsinpainting\/docs\/cip_mk2_catalogue_2020__issuu_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Mieves_ConverstioninPainting_2019s-302x213.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"568\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung. 10 Oct 2017, Marianne Hoffmann.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/IMG_4115-1024x768.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"469\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Exeter Contemporary Open, September 2008.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/ECO_2008-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"469\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/artuk.org\/discover\/artworks\/schoolboys-45830\/view_as\/grid\/search\/keyword:mieves\/page\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art UK \/\u00a0UK\u2019s public art collections\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-27-at-01.21.34-1024x555.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"339\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Expoliador de Conciencias&#8217;,\u00a0El Progreso, Spanish Newspaper, 11 September 2010.Angeles M. Maira,<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Prog_11Sept2010-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"833\" \/><\/p>\n<p>El Progreso, 1 September 2010, Melissa Gomez.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Prog_11Sept2010b-copy-633x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"1011\" \/><\/p>\n<p>La Voz de Galicia, 1 September, 2010, Bego\u00f1a G. Rielo.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Voz_1Sept2010-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"833\" \/><\/p>\n<p>El Progreso, 2 September 2010, Jaureguizar.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Prog_2Spet2010-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"833\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Times, The Knowledge, July 29 -August 4, 2006. John Russell Taylor<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/t3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"573\" \/><\/p>\n<p>La Voz de Galicia, Spanish Newspaper, Spain, August 2004. Raquel Rodriguez.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/t1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"543\" \/><\/p>\n<p>El Progreso, Spanish Newspaper, Spain, August 2004.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mieves.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/t44.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"667\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photography: Axel Wierdemann Christian Mieves is a painter and academic based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. For over 20 years, his work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the UK, Spain, Mexico, Switzerland and Germany. He has also published extensively on contemporary art, with a particular focus on issues of visibility, image [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1338,"href":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9\/revisions\/1338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mieves.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}