Paul Mumme

BIO - PAUL MUMME ____________________________________________________________ _____________ Born 1984, Brisbane, Australia. Originally trained as a painter, my video works appropriate the aesthetic and compositional techniques of painting. I first began painting at age 10 when my parents sent me to art classes; I continued to paint throughout my time at school, entering various competitions and prizes with mixed results. When in year twelve, I was included in the Minister’s Awards at the QAG. After leaving school I travelled Europe for some time, and a year later enrolled in Fine Art at QCA. I graduated and am now studying Honours. This year my work was included in the IMA’s annual Freshcut exhibition. Recently I received the Churchie Emerging Art Award, and also undertook my first solo exhibition as part of the Metro Arts artistic program. ____________________________________________________________ _____________ ARTIST STATEMENT ________________________________________________________ The current focus of my work is to question expected outcomes of narrative and logical sequences of events. To deny the viewer what they expect often leads to an absurd outcome, thus much of my work can be considered as ‘absurdist’. The common ideas associated with the absurd also allow my work to deny further expectations, namely that of the link between the absurd and the nihilistic. My work also seeks to replicate the at times futile and self-defeating nature of human endeavour through the presentation of scenarios or vignettes representing simple tasks. Most of my work employs a method of cyclical editing which generates what I call a 'positive/negative' loop. The resulting effect is a looped sequence which does not cut or jump at its end, instead it creates the illusion of continuing time, or eternal time. Thus the viewer dictates the length of the video, usually the viewer watches several loops before realising (if they do at all) that they have seen this before. The effect created is similar to Jamais Vu, the opposite of Deja Vu, which entails the fact that someone is seeing something that they have seen before, but percieve it as new. This compliments the symbolic nature of the tasks depicted in the works as often they reference a mindset or behavioral tendency that is seen repetitively throughout time, but is never percieved to have happened before. The cliche "it's just history repeating" is thus quite interesting to me, as are most cliches, as they represent a communal idea or percieved truth which can be manipulated. The suit also features in most if not all of my works, this is both a useful grouping mechanism and symbol, which is rapidly becoming a signature motif for my work.