Miel (Amsterdam, born May 1984 ) and Telmo ( Rotterdam, born June 1989 ) started their artistic group 'TelmoMiel' in the beginning of October 2012. They meet in 2006 and this meeting made attending the Academy a success. Almost everything that they learned, they got from working with each other. Telmo and Miel started to do murals together, bringing individual pieces into one composition. This evolved into painting one image together, creating concepts and designs as a duo.
With a respect for both visions, they found that ‘perspective’ is one of the most important & interesting aspects of art. The perspective of the maker compared to the viewer, the difference in intend, meaning and interpretation. Perspectives on concept, colors and composition and so forth. This idea of ‘multiple viewing points’ and opinions is an ongoing discovery in their work.
Recent paintings contain playfulness in abstraction of reality, attempting to make the viewer see subjects with a different eye; They grew into using multiple images, layered over one another. By cutting away a top layer, another comes forward to complete the design. This provides a convenient abstraction, but the intend is more so to create a sort of marriage between figurative parts. Pieces that weren’t normally seen as one, but now complete each other in weird and beautiful ways.
About their work, the duo says:
"We have some things that we almost always include in our works. We almost always make portraits, often focus on arms, and then we like to paint clothes or fabric, because it gives the opportunity to create some movement in the work."
They themselves describe their style as "realism - but with an unrealistic color scale". They often choose colors that are slightly faded in order to create better contrasts in the shadows.
With references to the human and animal worlds they create complex creatures and fantastic scenarios. Aiming to bring across positivity, humor and a touch of the romantic.
Often executed on a monumental scale, creating huge architecturally sized paintings on building façades. In between they continuously paint with oils on smaller scale, creating bodies of work to exhibit. Their studio work contains individual and collaborative pieces, but all carry the name TelmoMiel.
"Dutch artist duo Telmo Pieper and Miel Krutzmann join forces as TelmoMiel, the moniker under which they’ve painted large-scale, surreal murals all over Europe. While well-versed in traditional figure painting, the artists distort and overlap their realistic renderings to create something dreamlike and surreal. They layer iterations of the same subject over one another in a way that evokes double-exposure photography. Telmo Miel’s work, whether it contains something as morbid as an animal skull or pleasant as a beautiful human face, retains a quality of softness. The images drape over one another like sheer, silky fabrics, enveloping buildings in their dreamy haze."
- Hi-Fructose Magazine -
EDUCATION
Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, Netherlands
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022
Together Apart, KIRK Gallery, Aalborg, DK
2020
Encounters, Thinkspace, USA
2019
Exquisite Waste of Time, KIRK Gallery, Aalborg, DK
2018
Difference in similarity, 44309Streetart Gallery, Dortmund, Germany
2017
Odds and Ends, Bits and Pieces, Fullerton Museum, Fullerton, USA Moniker Art Fair, Thinkspace gallery, London, UK
5 Year Anniversary, Sober Collective, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Lost, Thinkspace gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2016
Lost and not found, Fullerton Museum, Fullerton, USA
2015
Glove Stories, 44309Streetart Gallery, Dortmund, Germany
2014
Out of our Minds, Artifex Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
Eleventeen, Dampkring Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2013
Chunks in Gravy, Pictura, Dordrecht, Netherlands
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023
10 year anniversary | Out in the Open, KIRK Gallery, Aalborg, Denmark
2020
Inside out, KIRK Gallery, Aalborg, Denmark
2019
Up the Wall, KIRK Gallery, Aaborg, Denmark
Convergence, Thinkspace, USA
Plastic Murs, Valencia, Spain
2018
Urban Art, KIRK Gallery, Aalborg, Denmark
Pow!Wow! Hawaii, Honolulu Museum of Art School, Honolulu, USA
2017
Juxtapozed, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, USA Pow!Wow! Hawaii, Honolulu Museum of Art School, Honolulu, USA
Between Life & Lifeless, Honolulu Museum of Art, Spalding House, Hawaii, USA The Haus, Art Bang, Berlin, Germany
2016
Assemblage, Stolenspace Gallery, London, UK
Vitality and Verve, Longbeach Museum of Art, Longbeach, USA
Urban Art, KIRK Gallery, Aalborg, Denmark
Duo, Thinkspace Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Pow!Wow!Hawaii, Honolulu Museum of Art School, Honolulu, USA
2015
Spectrum ioYou, Christchurch, New Zealand
Annual, Dampkring Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Art Basel, Tabaccheria Gallery, Basel, Austria
Sober, Glassworks Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2014
Asa, Dampkring Gallery Art Basel,Miami, USA
Museumnacht, Amsterdam Historisch Museum - Amsterdam, Netherlands
2013
Opening, Dampkring Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Urban Art House Affordable Artfair, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Art at the Warehouse Artfair, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Raw Art Fair Urban Art House, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Faces Walls Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands