Distinctive and driven, artist Kristian Mumford creates strikingly beautiful portraits in oils. His portraits are primarily of women – their poses are dramatic, dynamic, but they are carefully composed, dressed up, placed within a specific realm – the women are romances on the idea of woman, the venus, the lover, the embodiment of grace. Mumford reaches for something profound within his works, and much of their impact comes from his autobiographical explorations of meaning within the paintings. His technique is innovative and fresh. Working on linen rather than canvas, Mumford works with a much finer surface which takes on the pigment. The effect is of translucent washes that layer and shimmer from within the painting, merging the subtlety of watercolor or inks with the vibrancy and malleability of oils. His lightness of touch, the ability this gives him to express variations of light and tone, lends the works a wonderfully ethereal quality.
Kristian Mumford, after an active and eclectic creative life has realised he was a painter all along.
My most recent body of work is influenced by my 3-year old son who can ‘plonk’ colors onto a canvas and be surprised. I’m a traditional painter, but he is not a painter, and something beautiful happens. The colors themselves mix and create something I cannot name as I watch joy bubble up into his being for no reason at all. My paintings and drawings are without frame not because it is modern, but because existence has no frame. There is a strong autobiographical aspect to my work that deals with the meanings attached to the experience of being happy because it happens. Happiness or joy that has nothing to do with anything, continue to be central processors in my work.
