Kristie Muller is an Artist and Photographer previously based in Toronto. She was born in Calgary, and recently relocated to Vancouver, British Colombia.

I briefly met Kristie through mutual friends. I was struck by an immediate sense that she was both withdrawn and boiling over with energy and humor. In my estimation, these are equally apt descriptions of her work. This mirroring, while not necessary, is something I tend to appreciate in artists. I am drawn to artists when the work seems to emanate some foundational quality of their character or essence.

Kristie seems preternaturally drawn to strange poetic moments that have a humor and somber quality in equal and varying measure. The constraints of her subject matter frame the exergy of her output.

There is passion and exhaustion in these photos. A sense of kink and the mundane all at once. They are sculptural, full and empty, they seem to be inhabited by familiar people and objects and yet they are alienating and awkwardly suggestive. I think they are fantastic images that penetrate somewhere weird and offer a very current point of view.

I’ve been trying to share Kristie’s work all year, and we finally connected where I was able to get a selection of images and a few words from her. It will be interesting to see where the next phase of Kristie’s work leads us. I can foresee further depth emerging, hinted at here, and I hope the unique lens she shoots through remains as delicate and fun as it feels now.

I asked Kristie a few questions, what she has been up to, what she uses to shoot and where she thinks photography is headed in the Insta age. She had this to say:

I’ve been focused on my photo and video work. I’ve been building a new body of work that includes video, sculpture, and photo elements; that I plan to exhibit in the new year.

I mostly use a point and shoot camera and my iphone x. I like how it’s easier to sneak photos and spy with lower-key cameras and phones. I find when I have a bigger setup, the energy changes, and I’m not able to capture what is there how I want to.

Everyone is a photographer and an image expert. We all take in and are exposed to so much photography every day online and out in the world. Over-saturation comes with it’s struggles for working photographers, but overall I think it’s made things a lot more interesting.

https://www.instagram.com/kristie.muller/

Josh Reichmann

December 2019