Sarah J. Mueller
I’m interested in capturing emotional tension and distant memory through raw marks, gestures, and atmosphere. My painting process is intuitive, beginning with transparent washes that build until a figure claws its way forward and settles into a resonant moment. The world built around these figures simulates the loose and dissolving nature of forgetting, and the piercing clarity of what is held.
Sarah J. Mueller (b. 1993) is an artist and art educator based in Jersey City with a practice in painting and mixed media installation. Throughout her studies, she simultaneously worked for years in memory-care units of long term health care facilities, an experience that deepened her sensitivity to the ways memory shifts, and formed a perspective that continues to guide how she approaches perception and presence in her work. Mueller has designed and led art programs in schools, museums, healthcare facilities, and youth detention centers throughout Michigan, NYC, and New Jersey alongside her painting practice that merges figurative painting and abstraction. She currently works out of her studio at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ. She teaches and mentors youth in their creative pursuits in Montclair, New Jersey.