Feature: Maureen Mulhern-White: “The Continuum”
British-American artist Maureen Mulhern-White’s otherworldly imagery invokes mystical landscapes that one experiences in dreams. A self-taught photographer, she began her creative path as a poet, receiving her MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and publishing her first poetry book, Parallax (Wesleyan University Press). Her first film camera, a Nikkormat from her brother, was lost long ago, but it ignited a spark that led her down a long road to discovering “the unique joys of using cheap, plastic cameras whose unpredictability and quirkiness are both vexing and appealing.” It has been through trial and analog experimentation that Maureen’s photo series, The Continuum, developed: photograms through archival pigments onto vellum paper and backed with silver or gold leaf that she describes to include “images of all types of animals and plants with an emphasis on horses, cows, floating beings, sea life. We share the rhythms of the moon, time, landscapes, weather with other creatures here on this strange spinning planet and as such we are all the same stardust.”
In composing the photograms, Maureen uses an “intuitive and often random” placement of the objects, moving and arranging until she achieves the final image that feels right to her. Sometimes an object inspires the work, or an idea will manifest and then a search for that object ensues. She scouts craft shops, waste transfer stations (where she rescued some plastic animals), and her own home. “Many of the objects are found around the house: for the “moon” in some of my images I pilfered a strange-looking round object from a facial cleaning kit that I found in my son’s bathroom,” she says. “I simply cut circles for other moon-shaped objects … I drew and cut out from paper a couple of the horses. I use pieces of plants such as rosemary and some beautiful little weeds that I found growing out of our gravel driveway. Small mushrooms abound. A shot glass encircling a lone plastic figure creates an image of a person floating off in a bubble. I also paint swirls with diluted developer to create a storm. I spray the surface of the paper with various kitchen ingredients. I use anything and everything that might work out in the narrative of a piece.”
Maureen’s photography is influenced by what she says is found “in between the lines of certain poems: bewilderment, alienation, nature … all wrapped up inside a circle that lifts off into the sky.” She loves the “mysterious aspects” of Emily Dickinson’s work, and the deceptive simplicity of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry. Maureen’s own poetry is image-driven, as in the last lines of “Skating,” from Parallax––horses, planets, dreams, the circular nature of time and life––symbolism that appears in her photography as well, taking her magical narrative on a continuous journey:
… the winter
Was an Appaloosa, bruised white and grey,
Its mane, cream turning pale against the sky.
At night, I dreamed of clear, red planets
Eclipsing thinner disks, shifting
Like ocular cells on all sides; featureless
Faces bobbed for eye space while I clung
To the basket of a hot-air balloon
And felt the world obliquely tip away, sliding
Further and further to where I am now.
GALLERY
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Maureen Mulhern-White has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Parallax, her first book of poetry, was published by Wesleyan University Press Poetry Series. Born in Birmingham, England, Maureen spent her early years in the UK before moving to the US where she is a naturalized citizen. She is an ardent photographer, an inconsistent gardener, and a terrible cook. Her favorite photographic subjects are crows, wild turkeys, cracks in sidewalks, and lost gloves. She and her husband, tenor saxophonist, Doug White, have one son, five cats, and are the founders of independent jazz record label, Juniper Records. Learn more and connect with Maureen on her Website!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Toboz is a self-taught, Pittsburgh-based artist with a background in writing and literature. Her work explores self-portraiture and creativity as a form of healing using various Polaroid cameras and film. She is inspired by vernacular photography, Victorian spirit photography, and ‘70s supernatural cinematography, as well as reading fiction. Her recent photo books include Dwell (Polyseme, 2020) and The Long Way Home (Static Age UK, 2018). Her Polaroid photography can be found in various publications including Shots Magazine, as a featured artist in She Shoots Film: Self Portraits, and Polaroid Now (Chronicle Books, 2021). A copy editor by trade, she has exhibited internationally and is represented by photographer Stefanie Schneider’s Instantdreams Gallery (Palm Springs, CA).
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