ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is a swirling devotion to process and surrender.

Since 2019, cyanotype has taught me subversive techniques via states of play, acceptance and transformation. This alternative photographic process uses light-sensitive chemicals which are applied to a surface like paper or fabric, exposed to UV light, and developed with water to create brilliant blue and white images. Additional processes like bleaching and toning (with everyday kitchen witchery like baking soda or tea!) make for additional color possibilities using the same old chemistry.

Both imagery and process are relational, with my work often revealing my own emotions to me before I’m even aware of their presence. I often explore this terrain by painting shapes with the chemistry, placing objects onto the surface to resist the light, rinsing and repeating this process in multiple layers. The paper holds the memory of each new layer, dodging destruction while creating space for possibility. 

Conversely, there are also magical moments where the image snaps into place in one exposure, as if by a flick of the wrist. The simplicity can be electrifying. The paradoxical nature and generative inertia of making these painterly cyanotypes continually invites me to learn and my work to transform.

INTERVIEW

South Broadway Press asks Rachel Mulder a few questions to get to know this artist a bit better.

SBP: WHERE ARE YOU FINDING INSPIRATION AS OF LATE?

RM: As a leo (sun, mercury and mars), I feel really grateful that a major part of my practice is actually worshipping the sun! Cyanotype is such a whirling dervish of magic, it’s really easy to be endlessly captivated by the process itself. I also enjoy listening to podcasts while I work, including Dean Spade’s Love in a F*cked up World (named after his most recent book, which I haven’t read yet) and Margaret Killjoy’s Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff (especially the four-parter on how the Surrealists were even cooler than we thought!)

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH, IF ANYTHING, WITH YOUR ARTWORK?

Currently, I feel like I’m at a kind of journeyperson stage with cyanotype; I have a lot of confidence and trust with the chemistry and timing but I feel as though I’ve barely begun deepening the secondary processes available to me, like toning or adjacent methods like anthotype or Solarfast (the latter offers lots of different colors outside of the traditional blue!). I’m also passionate about sharing this magical process with others, and am on the lookout for an ideal, accessible location where I can continue to offer more masks-required cyanotype workshops for people of all ages and abilities here in Portland.

SBP: WHAT IS BRINGING YOU JOY RIGHT NOW?

I’ve been spending a lot of time in parks lately, and I feel really lucky and grateful when a dog or baby locks eyes with me and demands to become my friend. Like, when a dog you just met gives you The Lean or crouches beneath your legs like you’re its protector, that’s like the highest compliment. 

SBP: ANY UPCOMING EVENTS?

My solo show SUNWORK will be on view at Elbow Room in Portland, Oregon next month! The opening reception is on Sunday, October 26 from 3:00 – 6:00 pm and will be up through November 27. I’m also part of a little co-op called Grover’s Curiosity Shop where I sling prints, stickers, cards and more, and we host sweet and weird events there. My website is rchlmldr.com and there you can easily sign up for my newsletter or find my online shop. I offer a selection of prints where 25% of my sales are shared with Palestinians and mutual aid efforts in Gaza, like the anticapitalist mutual aid fund Bridge of Solidarity. Last, I have a Patreon where at the $5 tier or higher you get monthly postcards in the mail as well as behind the scenes process stuff, discounts in my shop and more.

Rachel Mulder (she/they) lives in Portland, Oregon, with her two cats, Opal and Tomasina. She was born in rural Wisconsin and when she was small she spent a lot of time sitting in the grass staring, obsessing about animals, watching cartoons and peeling her skin off. Now she makes drawings using a variety of media that often yield printmakerly textures – residual effects from earning her BFA in Printmaking at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2007. A process-oriented artist, her work vacillates back and forth between the meticulous and obsessive to playful experimentation and experientiality. Whether it’s drawing with human hair, mud, cyanotype, gel pen or graphite, her imagery explores human connection, expression, and the strangeness of existing in a body. Encouraging others (and herself) to create/exist sincerely is a parallel passion of hers that braids itself into her visual work.