Ten of his paintings, along with one piece mounted on a three-dimensional wood trellis, are on display at La Jolla’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in an exhibition titled ‘I’m OK, You’re OK,’ taken from the 1960s self-help book

By MARTINA SCHIMITSCHEKWRITER

OCT. 17, 2019

5 AM

At first glance, Nikko Mueller’s abstracts seem like cheerful geometrics, bold patterns with carefully chosen colors. But a closer look reveals a deeper story.

The triangles, rectangles and circles are a bit off.

The canvases have been folded after the original pattern was applied, then stretched on the frame again to alter the shapes and change the narrative.

“How an underlying component changes relationships has been a longstanding interest of mine,” Mueller said. “I look at the mess that I’ve made — the problem — and how to find a resolution. It’s not about a new innovative response. I follow the same rules to make it coherent again.”

Those rules include a logical, pared-down design of shapes and the space they inhabit, as well as elements of color theory, which he teaches in drawing and painting classes as a professor at Southwestern College.

Mueller, who received his Master of Fine Art from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, moved to the San Diego from Los Angeles in 2013 to accept the teaching position. He started this series about two years ago. The disturbed shapes started as an analogy of where we are politically and historically, Mueller said. Over time, they became more anthropomorphic.

“Deviations are what make us interesting in the end,” he said. “I’m taking logical relationships and problematizing them. The canvas becomes more in play, more assertive.”

In the reshaped forms, Mueller started noticing human qualities. “The way they respond to transformation makes them feel human,” he said. The folds change the narrative, and some shapes seem to become dominant and others fade into the background. “It’s like they have different kinds of purpose.”

“The paintings,” he said, “are trying to get back to what was stable.”

Ten of his paintings, along with one piece mounted on a three-dimensional wood trellis, are on display at La Jolla’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in an exhibition titled “I’m OK, You’re OK,” taken from the 1960s self-help book. Mueller also gleaned the titles of the paintings from that book and the other popular ’60s self-help book “Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships.” Reshaped groupings of circles have names such as “See What You Made Me Do” and “You Got Me Into This.”

“I’m looking at structures of relationships. It’s hardly a deep dive into psychology,” Mueller said of his titles. He attributes his penchant for seeing connections in shapes to growing up with a mother who was a family therapist.

A few pieces were made specifically for the Joseph Clayes III Gallery, including the canvas on the shelf-like trellis, which mimics the Athenaeum’s windows and plays off the light in the room, which was designed by William Templeton Johnson in 1920.

The show also includes 3D pieces made with two books stuck together and then painted on the outside. Most of the books are feathered together through their pages and were paired by their titles. Mueller said he collects stacks of discarded books and then looks for moments that tie two together, such as “Longshot” and “Little Hedges” and a book on history paired with the “Last Best Thing.”

“It could be glib,” he said of the pairing, but “it extends to how we map our future.”

Mueller said he wanted to add the books to the exhibition “to have elements of words floating around.” The books, which were all created over the summer, make the exhibition more approachable, he said. Each set is also painted with geometric forms.

Mueller attributes is fascination with old and altered things to his childhood in Philadelphia in 1980s and ’90s when many areas were blighted. “I was used to seeing things in a compromised state. It fascinated me,” he said. For him, the transformation of an old mansion into apartments made the building magical.

“I’ve always carried Philadelphia with me,” Mueller said.

For a while, transforming his art included sandblasting the canvas. But, he said, with so much anxiety in today’s society “the assault on my work became too dark.” The new series is much more hopeful. “The paintings are trying to heal,” he said.

Nikko Mueller: “I’m OK, You’re OK”

When: Through Nov. 2

Where: Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla

Admission: Free

Phone: (858) 454-5872

Online: ljathenaeum.org

Schimitschek is a freelance writer.