The Artist

Mudgett In His Kingdom. By G. Lemuel Ⓒ2021

Mudgett by G. Lemuel. © 2021 Christopher Mudgett

American painter, draftsman, printmaker, and sculptor Christopher Mudgett (b.1982) is a pioneering contemporary artist who rejects traditional abstraction in favor of recognizable subject matter, deliberately employing a raw style of rendering and a heightened monochromatic palette in order to convey direct emotion. Embracing the artistic developments of the first half of the 20th century (cubism,expressionism,minimalism), Mudgett returns the human figure to a central position in painting. Doing so in an ever new and dynamic way.

From a very early age, Christopher possessed an immense passion and interest in art. When he was seven he got a taste of what was possible in painting. First encounters with past masters opened his eyes to the possibility of what art could do, not only for the human spirit but, also as a way of transforming his ideas into something tangible that could be universally shared and understood by all. However, his journey into the visual arts world did not begin until 2011, after a 15-year career in music, he felt the need for a more immediate and direct form of self-expression to satisfy his creative impulses.

His work is spontaneous. Mudgett says, “Painting is not meant to illustrate a drawing, but to let the paint speak for itself.” He sees the beginning of every new work the same way a soldier would going in to battle, the stakes are very high. His art lives and dies on the canvas and inspires him to triumph over his doubts and fears to be victorious. Mudgett draws maximum inspiration from life itself. The people with whom he corresponds daily, the ideas and beliefs that are closest to his soul, love in his heart and the doubts and fears he has of himself. The beauty around him, human pain and suffering, love and lust inspire all his creations. By creating works of art that decode the mystery of life, Mudgett feels he is unintentionally discovering our motives as a society and in our humanity as a whole.

Mudgett does not deliberately decide on the subjects of his work. They are the ones that are most coherent in his mind, or themes taken from everyday life that stay in his thoughts and occasionally appear in his dreams. Art is therefore an inner look of one’s soul and consequently the external manifestation of our being. Looking at some of his paintings, two examples of which show a strong presence of white and black colors, and the reason and meaning of this monochrome style are not just aesthetic.

For him, black and white, opposing extremes of the visual spectrum, represent the duality that man lives in his life: night/day, good/evil, love/hate, life/death etc. Mudgett is constantly being pushed and pulled in both directions. “Duality is our existence, you cannot have one extreme without the other also being present. We are a product of these oppositions within and although sometimes these two forces reject each other, they also attract by nature.” The shapes and volumes of the subjects represented are reduced to simple, continuous lines or geometric volumes of clear cubist ascendancy, typical of Picasso and Braque.

Since 2012, Mudgett has exhibited his work in countless galleries and art fairs across the country. Most recently LA Art Show & Art Basel Miami. His artwork is currently held in private collections around the world, including: North & Central America, Great Britain, Singapore, Denmark, Spain, Germany, France & China.

When asked what the most pressing challenge an artist has to face is, he said, "I believe the biggest hurdle an artist must overcome is himself. We all have the potential within us to be great. The work we must do is to transcend the fears, doubts and inhibitions which hold us back and create art for the sake of self-expression and of sharing with the world our unique gifts."