“First you assume they represent non-objective paintings and sculptures, then you realize some might be independent shapes imposed over the underlying composition, and finally you accept that really every element of the painting is fundamentally a shape defined by its relationship to all the other elements.”

“In order to verbally get a grip on what is visual, I start with keywords: space, space art, art space, architectural forms, objects as such, pared down, flatness, constructed perspectives, stacked and overlapped but not agitated, strange yet satisfying, contemplative. I sense an immensely powerful emptiness.”

“Mühsam uses the formal language of Constructivism to paint new structures that deconstruct the Constructivist's socio-political artistic mission. Although they aimed to create a new society, the movement ended before the 1930s, never reaching its utopian goals. Speaking about the relationship between his recent paintings and the group, Mühsam stated, "these allusions to Russian Constructivism are also, I suppose, musings on the futility of their kind of utopian thinking that you could change society through art." The artist's nonsensical formal arrangements speak to his perception of Constructivism's unsuccessful efforts to use art for social progress.”

“Mühsam's newer paintings in SiteParallels offer a world of forms that enclose without displacing, that demarcate self-contained territories while at the same time indulging the flatness afforded by the painting plane. His uncanny interior and exteriors reference a world that exists in an alternate history of art history. This is a world in which one recognizes (at least imagines) certain touchstones, but only through a kind of déjà vu—the hazy, imprecise feeling that you've seen this before, but it's not this.”

“Armin Mühsam paints, what you might name "cultural landscapes", indeed it is the title of one of his early works (Kleine Kulturlandschaft). Quite generally, references to human culture and activity are omnipresent in his work and probably what first strikes the observer. Consequently, his work has been analyzed, not least by himself, in the historical context of, and in opposition to, traditional landscape painting that viewed untouched landscapes as the supreme creation of God. In Mühsam's work His supreme creation is replaced by the, supposedly, inferior works of man.”

“In fact, Mühsam seems to work like a classic sculptor, and to have removed everything superfluous from the image. The end-product contains only the indispensable – that which has been distilled from a process of observation and subsequent purification. This would also explain the almost viscerally felt emptiness of the image space.”

“There is a visual mystery to the sparse landscapes painted by Armin Mühsam. The works are austere, yet achingly beautiful, capturing the light and shadows of what might be America or a place entirely fictive. Some paintings feature landscapes with odd industrial objects, structural forms, mechanical or concrete foundations, tanks or overpasses without visible human presence.“

“One never knows the locations of the places that Armin Mühsam paints but one instantly realizes why humans are absent. Humanity is represented by its destructive fabrications: tunnels, dikes, walls, excavations, roads...an artificial landscape filled with technological architecture, or rather, a landscape as a backdrop for technology.”

“A number of art critics have praised the mysterious qualities of his work, asking questions such as "Where are these sites?" or perhaps "Why are these landscapes so empty?" Moreover, the artist's skill at creating a sense of timelessness can be seen through characterizations of his paintings as "futuristic;" "records for future use;" and "ambiguous in time and space."

“Among the most compelling pieces are a series of charcoal and acrylic drawings that could have been ripped from the pad of a futuristic civil engineer. But Mühsam's handling endows these lifeless scenes of dikes, tunnels, power lines, trenches and tanks with a formal grace and expressiveness that transcend deadpan architectural draftsmanship.”

“There's a certain quality inherent in a landscape painting that is rarely pointed out in art: the eternal. Trees, rolling hills, a cloud-filled sky – these natural elements go on through time and are basically the same today as they were in the 16th century and as they will be in the 23rd century.”

“Mühsam envisions the construction site as an artistic playground where shapes and forms are subject to the manipulative powers of the artist It's a grown-up's version of playing with blocks.”

“Looking at the strangely lean spaces and clean, angular views in the paintings of Armin Mühsam, now at the Atkinson Gallery at Santa Barbara City College, one name leaps to mind: Giorgio de Chirico. Like protosurrealist de Chirico, Mühsam relishes the interaction of peculiar structures and shadows, and of geometries laid out on enigmatic grids and odd landscapes.”

“Throughout Mühsam's work runs a sense of abandonment of the once cherished and new. Bridges or dikes leading off to distant horizons end abruptly in the foreground, telephone lines criss-cross to form abstract patterns across the sky, seemingly disconnected from any function. These traces of man's intervention are set into sweeping vistas, juxtaposed against verdant rolling hills and clusters of deep green trees and bushes, so as to amplify their constructed nature as well as to highlight the notion that we are constantly manipulating the landscape to suit our wants and needs.”