Nan Mulder
was born in Leiden, the Netherlands. She studied painting and printmaking at
the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam (1967-’72) and the Art College of
Kraków, Poland (1972-’73). In 1996 she also graduated from Edinburgh University
with a MA (Hons) in English Literature. She taught printmaking at Edinburgh
College of Art and Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design in Dublin. In the
1990s she was a regular resident artist at the Tyrone Guthrie
Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland. Her work has been extensively exhibited in
solo and group exhibitions all over the world.
As the
pioneer of the mezzotint in Scotland, she has been a visiting lecturer at the
Art Colleges of Glasgow, Belfast, Amsterdam, Groningen and Kathmandu. In her
more recent prints on copper, she often combines the mezzotint with itaglio and
relief printing, photo gravure, chine collé and gold leaf. This is resulting in
larger, quite complex prints
Since 1977
Nan Mulder has been living and working in Scotland (with the exception of the
period 1982-1987 when she was living in Dublin). Her work often relates to the
countries she lives in, or to the places she travels to. The landscape or
landmarks of these places, intermingle with, or replace, personal experiences
and emotions. Landscapes and objects can thus become metaphors for that which
is hard to express in words. Books, boxes, old texts and doors can allude to
hidden or shared secrets; rooms can harbour dreams reflected or contrasted in
the outside world; footsteps and hands make fleeting moments into lasting
impressions. Many of the resulting images surpass the original source and
become part of a borderless universe where anything is possible. Scotland,
India, Nepal and New Zealand, among many other places, have all left visible
traces in the world depicted in her work. For the exile home can be found
nowhere and anywhere, and Mulder continues to explore and investigate in her
work this fluid sense of place and belonging.
Nan Mulder
is an elected professional member and council member of the Society of Scottish
Artists, a professional member of Kunstenaars Vereniging De Ploegh in the
Netherlands, a member of Edinburgh Printmakers and of CPCANZ, the Central Print
Council Aotearoa New Zealand.