Michelle Mullet
Michelle Mullet paints Soviet Bus Stops. She is a self-taught artist, and her work combines Brutalist architecture with a French countryside palette. She is the winner of the Denis Diderot AIR Award 2023 and began painting this new series during her residency at one of the 10 Most Beautiful Artist Residencies in the World, Château Orqueveaux. Michelle is also the recipient of a Mass Cultural Council Recovery Grant 2023. She has traveled to several international artist residencies, including Arquetopia in Mexico and Can Serrat in Barcelona. Currently, she is under consideration for The Galerie Heimat Art Prize in France and the NG Art Creative Residency in Maussane-les-Alpilles.
Artist Statement
This new body of work illustrates joy in a darkened landscape. "I found a photography book with pictures of eccentric and angular Soviet Bus Stops built throughout Russia and Ukraine. During my residency at Château Orqueveaux in France, I had a breakthrough and started painting these interesting structures with warm, inviting colors. The result is a beautiful surprise: cold, Brutalist architecture bathed in the warm, glowing colors of the French countryside. The Van Gogh yellows and soft rose palette give these small shelters a quiet radiance. I love the flattened, pictorial plane that echoes influences of Ozenfant’s Purism, while the colors radiate with the playfulness of a Paul Klee or Josef Albers painting.
www.artworkarchive.com/profile/michelle-mullet
How has the environment you grew up in affected your art practice?
The environment I grew up in felt chaotic and crowded. So, it's easy to see how my work embraces the antithesis: calm, open space with strong, powerful structures that radiate resilience in perpetuity. My architectural paintings offer realms of safety and shelter in soft, colorful landscapes. I'm painting the architecture of happiness. We are all kind of looking for that after living through a global pandemic.
If your artwork was a mirror, what would it reflect?
This new series of Soviet Bus Stops and Brutalist architecture reflects the environments that I find comforting. If they are a mirror, these paintings reflect my personality. I'm resilient, strong, and powerful, but I'm also sweet, soft, and tender with those closest to me. Painting these concrete, Brutalist structures with the warm, radiant colors of the French countryside helps me reconcile the dichotomy of being both tough and tenderhearted.
What is the most difficult part (or your least favorite part) of your process?
I'm self-taught, so architectural draftsmanship is a challenge. The most difficult part of my process is the initial drafting of each structure. I use a T-square and drawing pencils for this. Every building and bus stop looks like a puzzle to me, and getting the composition and angles right takes a lot of time, patience, and erasing! But once I complete the drafting, the rest of the piece is pure joy, filling it in with a radiant, bright palette.
Pursuing ‘artist’ as a career is not for the faint of heart. What is the most rewarding aspect of this pursuit?
I think something you realize early on if you want to be an artist is that you have to fight for it, like, for years. Nobody is going to give you a lil’ blue ribbon that says, 'Number One Artist of All Time.' During the pandemic, I felt a lot of pressure, so I started painting. I’m compelled to make this work, no matter if five people or 500 people see it. That freight train of momentum and motivation has to come from within, or you will end up making things for others, not for yourself. Eventually, if someone comes along and says, 'I like your work…' or they give you a gallery show, then that's just icing on the cake. The joy and euphoria that comes from making this kind of work radiates from my true self. Once I figured out what I want to make and how to make it, I thrive in this realm of endless potential.
If your art is in a lineage of artists working within similar veins, who would be part of your lineage and why?
The gas stations by Ed Ruscha have very similar aesthetics to my Soviet Bus Stops, and that's kind of funny now that I put them together. I'm also very interested in the color theories of Josef Albers and Amedee Ozenfant. I love the colors of Albers’ paintings in real life because they vibrate with energy and hypnotize the viewer through minimalist elegance. Ozenfant studied color theory connected to architecture and worked alongside Le Corbusier. His use of color is very similar to my palette, and his work flattens spaces while creating tension with light blues and monochromatic gradients. This style, called Purism, is very similar to my new series of acrylic paintings. I’m also in love with the quiet, meditative work of Eva Hesse and Ruth Asawa. If you can sit with a piece of artwork for hours, that’s heaven.
