Sigrid Müller was born in Germany in 1962. She studied for her Diploma in Graphic Design at the Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences, Nuremberg, specialising in illustration from 1985 – 1991.
She moved to Wales in 1996 and became a full-time professional artist. Sigrid was second prize-winner in the prestigious Jerwood Drawing Prize Competition in 2014.
Sigrid says of her work:
‘When I draw, I try to translate what I see into how it feels to the touch. It is purely emotional, something that resonates, stirs memories, often from my childhood when judgement did not come before objects were thoroughly observed and experienced.
My drawings are made with layer upon layer of very fine pencil crayon on backgrounds of pooled watercolour washes. It is a meticulous process which can take several weeks from the preliminary sketches to the finished painting.
The background is a dynamic and integral part of the painting, as important as the subjects themselves. It provides an imagined space where they can live – suspended, with nothing to hold on to, or existing on seemingly firm ground.
I choose intuitively, not searching, but coming upon, being stopped in my tracks by the promise in a closely furled iris bud, the dry rattle of a seed pod, or the soft ripeness of a plum.’
