Daniel Mullen was born in Glasgow, Scotland (1985). He received his BA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (2011), and was nominated for the Royal Dutch Prize for painting (2014).

Artist statement

I create images of abstract architectural volumes and shapes, that seem weightless and transparent, and in which the scale is left to the imagination of the viewer. The theme of my work is emptiness; through a visual language inspired by architecture, I explore the potential and the contradictions within this word. In the current White Series I am bringing together two philosophical standpoints, from Western thoughts on nothingness to eastern philosophical thoughts on emptiness. Emptiness is considered a spiritual state of being to be aspired;  ‘Stare’ for example suggests that nothingness is a positive state of being and emptiness a negative. This has informed my choice to only use the plain canvas and white paint (as a substitute for gesso). I see the plain canvas as the emptiness and the painted white surface as the nothingness. I want to explore the potential space between them, essentially creating paintings within the surfaces that would normally be the starting point for a painting. Therefore all surfaces are flat, depth can only be created through gradation, scale, repetition, and spacing. Within my new works I feel free to set the rules and break them, it is my universe and I am the architect at play.