MIA MULVEY Studio

2022- ongoing

Throughout deep time, geology itself has been moving and changing its location around the globe This work explores the potential of non-human communication across time at rates faster than the slow transformation of geologic time. Using the human body as a host for mobility across landscapes, this rock, cast from one residing in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, exists as a replica with abilities to form dialogues between landscapes. Utilizing acoustic horns as both receivers and conveyors of intangible knowledge, what information would this mass of earth be able to communicate and understand?

The New Geologic Epoch, curated by Mary Mattingly

online exhibition & book

https://ecoartspace.org/New-Geologic-Epoch-2023

Inscription a Hand Writing (Lilliehookbreen)  Mia Muvey & Bin Ramke

cyanotype, porcelain, sound. 2024

Albedo Effect

ceramic, wooden pallets

2023

On View: February 20, 2023 - June 30, 2024

https://bmoca.org/exhibitions/2023/spring/mia-mulvey-albedo-effect

Mia Mulvey is an interdisciplinary artist and professor of studio art at the University of Denver. In Mulvey’s multimedia practice, art and science intersect with ceramics and technology. Her works capture the passage of time through the lens of the anthropocene, climate change, and integrated ecosystems. Albedo Effect is directly drawn from her field research during The Arctic Circle Residency (2019) based in Svalbard, Norway. During this two-week residency, international artists and writers sail throughout the Arctic Ocean in the Norwegian Archipelago, midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole.

In Albedo Effect, Mulvey visually translates the effect of albedo, the measurement of the proportion of light a surface is able to reflect or absorb. Sixty percent of the Norwegian archipelago is covered in glaciers, however it is currently warming at twice the rate of areas at the same latitude. As the glaciers warm, their reflectance and brightness reduce and their color darkens, which further accelerates the heating process because darker surfaces absorb more light. Permafrost fires, forest fires, and industrial pollution also contribute to the loss of brightness of glacial surfaces and sea ice.

Mulvey’s site-specific, outdoor sculpture is symbolic of this feedback loop between glacial melting and global warming and the interconnectivity between climate and albedo. The triad of ceramic sculptures are modeled from 3D scans of glaciers Mulvey generated while in the Arctic. The sculpture is affixed on top of three wooden pallets that signify the notion of time and transport, symbolizing the vast distance between the origin of the glaciers and its present installation site. Over the span of a week, Mulvey intermittently exposed the unfired clay to the elements in Colorado. This process created permanent imprints in the glazed clay from the outdoors, localizing the influence of climate and weather.

Albedo Effect reminds us how the impact of our daily lives is echoed in the Arctic Circle by not only the sound of ice cracking, but also the level of light dimming.

Written by Jane Burke, Curator BMOCA

Salt, 24” x 24” x 2”, 2022

Wheeler Peak, located in Great Basin National Park holds the Bristlecone grove where Prometheus was found. Bristlecones grow very slowly, most often in rocky extreme terrain just below tree-line. (Getting there was quite the adventure, hiking off trail across a rocky glacial moraine to the top of a ridge just outside of this cirque.) This is also the site of Nevada’s last glacier. It’s an alpine rock glacier, so you don’t regularly see ice or snow except for a small remnant deep in the bowl. The glacier is ice, buried deep and within the rocks about 2 acres in size. It is still moving, creating crevasses, lobes and a hummocky moraine, but with the climate continuing to warm it could be gone in the next 20 years.

ceramic, 32” x 18” x 5”, 2022

This Bristlecone Pine was cut down in 1964 only to reveal itself to be the oldest known living tree in the world. Its age, still unsurpassed, began in 2936 BCE. The tree lived to 4900 years old. This piece originated as a 3d scan of what remains.

3d-printed porcelain & platinum luster, 10” x 35” x 3.5”, 2023

In April 2022, I was able to visit the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, the birthplace of dendrochronology, in Tucson, Arizona. I met with researchers and scanned specimens from their collection, focusing on Sequoias and Bristlecones. This work originated as a wedge-shaped cut of wood spanning the diameter of a 3,222-year-old tree, D21, which allowed its age to be scientifically measured. Living Sequoia trees are too large for incremental borer techniques to reach the center of the tree so while others may well be older, they cannot be confirmed.

3d-printed salt and charcoal, 32” x 32” x6”, 2022

This Sequoia began growing in 1380 BC. It was 3,266 years old when it was cut down in the Sierra Nevada mountains and burned in subsequent forest fires, but yet, it remains.

Created while in residence at The Montello Foundation, Nevada. This work is a collection of paper sculptures represented through photographs and installation.

2020

The Space(s) Between Exhibition-Link

Link to Nevada Humanities article

Link to 2020 Montello Report

From May 30th - June 13th, 2020 I engaged with the desert landscape in a residency at the Montello Foundation in Nevada.

I drove into my residency at the Montello Foundation during the Covid pandemic on the day Space X launched and the eruption of BLM protests. Once at Montello it took a few days to transition, exchanging one kind of intensity for another.

I was struck by the sound of the landscape, being alone in a remote location, my ears became attuned to every noise possible. Remoteness is definitely not quiet. For the first 3 days there wasn't a single plane that flew overhead so I was able to experience the landscape in a way unusual for our time.

I created a series listening devices based on acoustic horns, "war tubas", used for the detection of aircraft from the early 1900's. My forms were 3d-modelled on the computer, unfolded and then constructed in paper. The series of forms and documentations, titled Listening to Distance, explores the concept of sound and what it means to listen; not to the sound of humans but to remoteness and the passage of time.

Coyote Gulch Park

Lakwood, CO

April 18 - October 18, 2021

www.landmarkexhibit.com

Link: Audio Tour

303Magazine.com

Daria Magazine

Collaborating with the current climate of Colorado, this outdoor work changes over time .... a parallel process of melting, revealing the effects of those events.

In the summer of 2019 I was able to travel to Svalbard in the Arctic Circle to participate in The Arctic Circle Residency. We were an international group of artists and writers who explored creative work aboard the tall ship, Antigua.. We sailed the waters of this international territory, an Arctic archipelago just 10 degrees latitude from the North Pole.

While there, I 3d-scanned glacial ice that has long since disappeared. Preparing for this exhibition in a pandemic added additional layers of ideas to the work. Early on in Covid, it was hypothesized whether this "Great Pause" would be reflected in the glacial ice record due to the incredible reduction of air travel and other industrial pollutants. Unfortunately, those months were followed by one of the worst wildfire seasons in the West and a second extreme season of permafrost wildfires in the Arctic circle.

The Arctic, and specifically Svalbard, is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet. Permafrost fires, forest fires and industrial pollution effect the color and brightness of the surface of glacial and sea ice and this darkening has important consequences. Albedo, the title of this work, is the measure of how much light that hits a surface is reflected or absorbed. These events, however small, heat glacial surfaces by reducing their reflectance.

Combined with warming these factors are causing a great loss of ice and a release of information through melting: chemistry, isotopes, gasses, debris,.... but also time and a physical catalog of the history of the landscape, region and world.

June 2019 - Present

In the summer of 2019, I participated in The Arctic Circle Residency. An international expeditionary program where a group of artists and writers explored their creative work aboard a Barquentine Tall Ship. We sailed the waters of the international territory of Svalbard, an Arctic Archipelago just 10 degrees latitude from the North Pole.

Elysian Magazine, Creative Exploring in The Arctic by Hannah Shepard (PDF)

DU Professor of Art Explores Extreme Landscapes by Jessica Comola (Link)

Created from 3d scans of glacial ice collected during my time at the Arctic Circle Residency. These works explore the concepts of how glaciers release information as they melt; chemistry, isotopes, gasses and debris, but also time and a physical catalog of the landscape, region and world.

The works use color, form and in the case of Blomstrandbreen, sounds recorded in the arctic, as another language to explore the physical record that is being ‘played’ (lost) in the arctic.

3d printed charcoal and salt

6’ x 4’ x 6” | 2019

Converse Grove Basin once contained the largest grove of ancient Sequoia trees.  Located in Giant Sequoia National Monument, the area was felled in the late 1800’s by a private logging company. The resulting wood was destined for roof shingles, fence posts and matchsticks.   One Sequoia, designated CBR26, was 3,266 years old when it was cut making it the longest-lived sequoia known as confirmed through tree ring research. The role of preservation and fire in this ecosystem has been both destructive and vital for its growth. These pieces result from 3d scans of CBR26 and were 3d-printed using salt and charcoal. They serve to preserve and contain the elements of their landscape physically and metaphorically.

Denver Post, Killing Nature by Ray Rinaldi (PDF)

3d printed porcelain

4’ x 3’ x 7” | 2019

The desire to mark a presence on the landscape is a public and often private dialogue between the landscape, the maker and the audience. These narrative histories include recreation, communication, documentation, and art. References to tree carvings have been cited as far back as the 1^stcentury BC by the Roman poet Virgil.  In the West, forests contain carvings by immigrant sheepherders in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Mormon pioneers, cowboys, outdoor enthusiasts and tourists. The carvings in the most remote areas were done by Basque and Peruvian sheepherders who came to the west to tend sheep in the high mountains. It was these men who carved their names, dates, images and their thoughts.  Layered in, through different time periods, others have contributed to the forests creating a mosaic of purpose, intention and context. I am interested in why these marks are made.  What is the dialogue between place, carver and audience? When and how do these texts and images become important?

ceramic

13” x 35” x 4” | 2019

The world’s oldest tree (clonal) is a Norway Spruce named Old Tjikko, in Fulufjället National Park in Sweden. The tree seen above ground, scrawny and ringed by what looks like a shrub, is only a few hundred years old. The tree grows by layering, the root system continually supports shoots which are pushed down by winter snow. The tree was carbon dated to 9,550 years ago by researchers who found under the mass at the base, ancient limbs. It is the root system, below ground and hidden from view, that has the strength to endure thousands of years of change.

3d printed porcelain

13” x 60” x 22” | 2018

Pando is a 12,000+ year old Aspen colony located in Utah. Although each individual tree lives only about 100 years, the underlying network of roots constitutes one of the world’s largest single organisms. This forest is only partially what it seems, it’s surfaces record and transmit their lives back into the whole and regenerate once again. Created from 3d scans of individual trees in Pando, this forest skin is 3d printed through the successive layering of individual rings of thin, translucent porcelain.

* Pando has been steadily dying over the past decades due to changes in climate, human impact and overgrazing from deer and cattle.

ceramic, 3d printed salt and charcoal

2’ x 11’ x 18” (installation dimensions variable) | 2019

A boundary layer is the thin layer that surrounds an object that is neither the air above nor the object below. This protected ecosystem becomes a skin that informs the shape of the forest. Białowieża Forest is a primeval forest and UNESCO World Heritage site on the border of Poland and Belarus. Accessible only with a guide, this forest is characterized by old growth, biodiversity, and decay.  In this work, the form was created vertically using bark molds taken from Białowieża, toppled and then left to decay by dissolving in water before firing. Undergoing a parallel process of growth, decay and change that characterizes the protected ecosystem from which it came, the boundary becomes a map of complexity and time.

Video: Regis University, Artist Interview (Link)

wool felt, 3d printed salt and charcoal

24” x 24” x 6” | 2019

Białowieża Forest is a primeval forest and UNESCO World Heritage site on the border of Poland and Belarus. Accessible only with a guide, this forest is characterized by old growth, biodiversity, and decay. The number of fungi species in Białowieża Forest is estimated in the amount of 3-4 thousand. This work originated as a 3d scan of a fruiting body species identified as “chicken fungus”.

3d printed porcelain

25” x 32” x 7” | 2018

Located in Nordskov Forest in Frederikssund, Denmark are examples of Europe’s oldest oaks: Kongeegen, Storkeegen and Snogegen (The King’s Oak, The Stork Oak and The Twisted Oak). Kongeegen, also know as The Royal Oak, is said to be the oldest living oak in Europe with an estimated age of over 1500 years. While still living it is in an advanced state of decline. A partial shell of its original circumference, one side is living and the other, decaying and hollow.

Despite its age and condition the Royal Oak is large and part of a rich forest. My visit allowed for specific views and the inability to take in its entirety, both physically through the act of 3d scanning and conceptually through its age and individual history.

Royal Oak No 1 explores the living side of the tree and was 3d printed in porcelain. Royal Oak No 2, 3d printed in salt and charcoal, represents its decayed interior.

3d printed salt and charcoal

21” x 19” x 4” | 2018

Located in Nordskov Forest in Frederikssund, Denmark are examples of Europe’s oldest oaks: Kongeegen, Storkeegen and Snogegen (The King’s Oak, The Stork Oak and The Twisted Oak). Kongeegen, also know as The Royal Oak, is said to be the oldest living oak in Europe with an estimated age of over 1500 years. While still living it is in an advanced state of decline. A partial shell of its original circumference, one side is living and the other, decaying and hollow.

Despite its age and condition the Royal Oak is large and part of a rich forest. My visit allowed for specific views and the inability to take in its entirety, both physically through the act of 3d scanning and conceptually through its age and individual history.

Royal Oak No 1 explores the living side of the tree and was 3d printed in porcelain. Royal Oak No 2, 3d printed in salt and charcoal, represents its decayed interior.

3d printed porcelain

14” x 18” x 7” | 2016

Located in Nordskov Forest in Frederikssund, Denmark are examples of Europe’s oldest oaks: Kongeegen, Storkeegen and Snogegen (The King’s Oak, The Stork Oak and The Twisted Oak). Kongeegen, also know as The Royal Oak, is said to be the oldest living oak in Europe with an estimated age of over 1500 years. While still living it is in an advanced state of decline, a partial shell of its original circumference, one side is living and the other, decaying and hollow. I was able to visit this forest and 3d scan each of these ancient trees. This work is a cross section of Kongeegen, 3d printed in porcelain.

porcelain

14” x 14” x 3” | 2018

Capturing the present and aged forward in time, this work originates from a 3d scan of a young Sequoia tree in Sequoia National Park. The scan was 3d printed in porcelain and then aged into the future through successive layering.

Reinvented Catalog, excerpt (PDF)

These works were inspired by 17th century Dutch floral paintings. In the paintings, collections of blooms were sought after for their beauty, rarity and symbolism. At the time, the Dutch were leaders in botanical and scientific illustration and the paintings demonstrated a blend of skill, science and allegory.

With these sculptures I am investigating history, materials and digital technologies. They include the traditional; handbuilding, moldmaking and drawing along side 3- dimensional scanning and 3d-printing. I am interested in how each process and translation leaves its own visual mark and contrasts itself through form and material as well as the concept of reproduction. Like the 17th century Dutch painter who painted from specimens at different times of the year and often again from sample paintings; the process of modeling a 3d form from a 2d painting, scanning, printing, firing and glazing all contribute to the collective of the new form.

Through the lenses of history and the natural world these still lives are collections that explore materiality, process and weave together the past with the new.

Phoenix New Times, Here’s the Best Things We Saw in Metro Phoenix During October 2016 (PDF)

Earth Moves Catalog, excerpt (PDF)

ceramic, mixed media

2.5’ x 14’ x 4” | 2012

The title Sylvae is latin for forest. Inspired by thematic cartography and map design this work is one place, one map and a thousand geographies. It is through the arrangement of private lines that one can discover a new landscape.

ceramic, porcelain, zip-ties, pins

14’ x 18’ x 1.5’ | 2011

Created for the Overthrown Exhibition at The Denver Art Museum

The Oak, America’s National tree, has been long a symbol of endurance and strength. The title, Mast Year, refers to the phenomenon in which Oak trees produce a prodigious abundance of fruit. This proliferation has been recreated with emblems of beauty and nature: birds, butterflies and moths. Lacking life and using forms present in death such as bird “skins” and insect mounts, the connection between the tree and the fauna highlight the forced, unnatural attempts to recreate the sublime by using synthetic, man made modes of attachment. Swarms and flocks and have been viewed as omens of both luck and death and such sights in nature are rare if not completely absent. The ultimate goal is to invoke something beautiful yet dark that speaks to the fragility of nature as well as the more poetic and undefined feelings of loss and the desire to exert control despite its futility.

Ceramics Now Magazine, Overthrown, excerpt (PDF)

Denver Post, Clay Goes Out on a Limb With DAM’s Overthrown Exhibit by Kyle McMillan (PDF)

Overthrown Catalog Volume 1 & 2, excerpts (PDF)

This body of work was taken from 3-dimensional prints of biological specimens. Replicating anatomy that is "true" and tied to a once-living, individual animal was central to this work. Working with the Digital Morphology Library these specimens were X-ray CT scanned and the resulting 3d files were then printed on a 3-D printer and/or CNC milled out of foam and finally, reproduced in porcelain.

The animals I chose to work with are all protected and thus threatened in the wild. They represent a larger population of animal species and their current status in the world. As humans, our views of these animals, and all of nature, is most often as a place “out there”, limitless and enduring. Our views are also often cluttered with romantic notions of exotic travels and attractive museum displays.

Our world's animal population is dwindling due to the fragmentation and loss of habitat from deforestation, farming, human encroachment, hunting, and climate change. These works deal with the ideas of beauty, collection, extinction, death and ultimately our relationship with nature.

Ceramics Monthly, Code (PDF)

Denver Post, The Sculptor’s Hand Is In It but Her Fingerprints Are Not, by Kyle McMillan (PDF)

Ceramics Arts Yearbook | Ceramics Monthly (PDF)

Le Meridien and AC Marriott Unpack Impressive Art Collections | Westword (PDF)

vitreous china

96” x 48” x 40” | 2003

This installation was created during a Kohler Arts/Industry Residency in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. This piece has its roots in the history of science museum dioramas and cross section models. Cervidae represents an idyllic view of nature. Familiar, and in our minds eye, the epitome of what is present “out there”. Originally the word diorama meant, “to see through” and referred to scenes painted on translucent fabric used in theatre. In this piece, the setting is one in which the viewer is allowed to “see through” and discover the hidden order in nature. Elements are based on mathematical formulas that reveal themselves in patterns of growth, such as fractals, hexagonal packing and the Fibonacci sequence. These patterns reveal an underlying structure and order that is both elemental and universal.

Arts/Industry Collaboration and Revelation, excerpt (PDF)

Biomimicry Catalog, excerpt (PDF)

Steamboat Today, Reinventing the Wheel (PDF)

Carson Masuoka Gallery, Johnson, Fetterman, Russo on State of Ceramics (PDF)

2007-2008

These works are based on the exploration of Scent, or better, the scientific process by which we smell. In 2004, the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Richard Axel and Linda Buck for their discovery of how the Olfactory System works. Their research proved that shape was the key element in determining scent. The shapes of molecules interact with receptors to create patterns in the olfactory center of our brains. These patterns allow us to differentiate and experience the thousands of different scents in our world.

The scents I chose fell under four themes borrowed from Michael Pollan’s book The Botany of Desire: Intoxication, Control, Beauty and Sweetness. These basic human desires link us to the natural world and we have propagated, harvested, modified, and sought out such substances. Although no actual scent is present, our bodies intrinsically know these forms and our memories of them.

Ceramics Monthly, All Together Now: Sets Aggregates and Themes (PDF)

Ceramics Monthly, Continental Divide by Liz Howe (PDF)

Concurs Internacional de Ceramica Catalog, excerpt (PDF)

Colorado Homes and Lifestyles, Life: State of the Art (PDF)

Denver Post, Audacious Installations by Kyle MacMillan (PDF)

porcelain, gypsum, acrylic and wood

24” x 24” x 5” | 2003

Utilizing the symbolic language of diagrams and models, Linantha’s seed like forms connect to the landscape and suggest the scientific process through their modes of visualization. Implying a process of moving from the unfamiliar towards understanding, it is within this active space that the wonder of diversity and resilience in the seed world lies. Their importance in the greater environmental landscape as markers of history, biology, sustenance and life rest in our capacity to value and protect this knowledge.

Link: Seed Cultures Archive

porcelain, magnifying glass, vinyl text

19” x 20” x 6” | 2000

The turtle skeleton is displayed with magnifying glass mounted in the front and accompanying text. Through the magnifying glass the viewer sees a floral pattern etched onto the surface. This work plays with notions of what is real or perceived to be so, within the context of scientific language and modes of display.

The text reads:

The Green Sea Turtle is named for its bluish green fat used to make a broth. The species is found in shallow areas of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, but many populations are now in peril. In 1589, Antonio Van Leeuwenhoek discovered the existence of delicate patterns on the belly plates of the turtle. Coined “nature’s scrimshaw” these belly plates became prized items for display in curiosity cabinets.

These strong, swift swimmers are awkward on land and leave the water only to lay their eggs. These habits made them easy prey for hunters throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Green Sea Turtles are now protected by law, but these wonderfully patterned creatures are still hunted by poachers and are on the brink of extinction.

porcelain, glass case

59”x60”x29” | 2000

Cast from life, the diorama depicts a “real” natural world.

Detail of 3” hole in glass case. The hole serves as an access to the interior of the case from which emits an artificial pine scent, like that of a green tree car freshener.

porcelain, copper, bees, resin, books

84” x 36” x 14” | 1999

Inspired by Greek statues that marked the , these extinct birds exist both in storage and on display. Each bird’s head tips back, mechanically working like a PEZ, to dispense an amber colored, resin pellet containing a dead bee.