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Rachel Mulder is a portraitist who works strictly in typewriter characters, like #s, %s and *s. At first, her pieces look like arcane computer printouts, until you peer closer and see a few characters carefully-placed—like pointillist marks—to create the whole image.
Mulder has always veered towards abstraction. She got hooked on Goya while at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design but became a printmaker without a press after graduation—until a friend's obsession with Beat poetry prompted an ornamental typewriter purchase. Out of necessity, Mulder considered using it as a substitute for the instruments she had at school.
In her previous show, Unrevealed, Mulder kept her subjects anonymous, capturing things like the back of a head. Still, the details of each hair in a tumble or bun were just as deliberate as any facial feature.
Her newer work diverges from that template and draws very personal inspiration from her friends at Project Grow, the local non-profit for adults with developmental disabilities where she volunteers four days a week. Project Grow's Northeast Portland center boasts an urban farming program and full arts studio, and it's also the seeding ground for Mulder's work.
"It was a place where people were unabashedly themselves, making authentic, amazing art," she said. "I have that to thank for making me confident enough to believe in what I'm doing," she said.
For her show's featured portrait of Dominic Amorin, a local video artist and Project Grow's gallery organizer, Mulder chose /'s and #'s.
"That's part of the fun of it—picking the character to represent the subject," Mulder said.
Once begun, she's committed. With the familiarity of her predecessors in the method—like Paul Smith, Leslie Nichols or Lenka Clayton—Mulder embraces the permanence of etching.
"There's something so special about the art being pressed onto the paper," Mulder said, "it's there, even if you make a mistake there's a repercussion. Even if you erase it, the imprint is still there."
See it: Darling Press Studio, 5300 SE Foster Rd., through Feb. 29.
Willamette Week
