Dave Muller Interview At Beautiful/Decay

(Via Beautiful/Decay)

If you are lucky, once in a while you find an artist that helps you remember why you started getting into art in the first place. I first saw Dave Muller’s work in 2004 at his show ‘I Like Your Music’ at Blum & Poe, and at the time was just a fresh-faced college kid, only beginning to think about getting involved in the fine arts. I walked into this room full of his drawings of massive record sleeves – vibrant, colorful, and full of life – it was one of the first times that I remember feeling truly enthusiastic about art, not simply because I thought it looked cool, but because it seemed to speak to something about life that I was really excited about. It was a turning point for me in the way I interacted with art, and I’ve never thought about things the same way. For me, Dave Muller’s work is all about the good things that make life worth living – good music, good friends, a little messy, a lot of color, and a lot of fun. Dave has been one of my favorite artists since that fateful day, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to him about his work, his alternate life as a DJ, and his recent wall drawing at the new Cowboys Stadium.

When did you first start making art, and when did you first consider yourself a professional artist? When were you able to quit your other jobs and focus completely on your studio practice?

I knew I was going to be a serious artist, if that’s what you mean by professional, in my mid-twenties when I was in grad school. After school I had various jobs building things; first freelance, than as an artist’s assistant. Beginning in the middle of 2000, I was on my own, scraping by on sales. Two years later I was starting a family and I took a job teaching and running a fabrication shop for the grad program at Art Center in Pasadena. I quit in August, 2004.

See the full studio visit on Beautiful/Decay.