Erhan Mues is an Australian born artist whose artworks are characterized by the distinct processes of stamping and spattering. Upon moving to New York in the mid 2000s, Erhan Mues was featured in Unframed First Look, a group show at Lehmann Maupin Gallery curated by Ross Bleckner, Peter Halley and Sue Williams. A solo exhibition at Robert Steele Gallery followed, after which Mues began consulting as a paint specialist for artists Shepard Fairey, Jeff Koons, Ellen Gallagher and Robert Indiana, and architects Richard Meier, Peter Marino and Maya Lin, among others.

 

Years spent spraying lacquer to create texture and tones for architectural surfaces fostered Mues’ interest in the lifelike movement he found in the layers of spatter he had become accustomed to creating. Allowing ‘spatter’ to operate as an intermediary between the organic and the industrial, Mues developed large-scale spatter paintings with a spray gun. This machine process sought to mimic what Mues recognized as the face within countless buildings and sidewalks.

 

So too, in his artworks made of self-created stamps, Erhan Mues explores how multiplicity has the power to rewrite meaning. Mues developed an extensive collection of mass-produced images born of laser-cut rubber stamps and a proprietary blend of oil pigments, that he places on archival paper. In stamping symbols of intimacy (i.e. lips kissing, a broken heart) alongside symbols of industry (a dollar sign attached to a ball and chain, an Apple logo)--the resulting artworks frame the irony of extolling and exchanging both at equal worth.

 

 All of Mues’ artworks bear his signature: a resin cast of an antique wax seal “E”.