Marlon Mullen
Marlon Mullen's vision prioritizes images and information in a vivid and personal way. The artist's highly original paintings belie the fact that the subject matter is almost exclusively appropriated–sourced from contemporary art and lifestyle magazines. Advertisements, articles and reproductions of artworks are distilled, transformed and edited, often beyond recognition, into a fascinating composition of dominant gestures and interlocking forms rendered in swirls of bold and tactile paint.
While they withhold vital information, the paintings have a perseverance of legibility as they toggle between representation and abstraction or isolate a particularly poetic grouping of words. As Mullen re-prioritizes line, color and form, often calling attention to something that might not otherwise be considered important or essential, the works reveal our own biases, habits or needs, especially to understand forms and assign meaning.
Mullen's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Atlanta Contemporary, White Columns in New York and JTT in New York. He has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as The Studio Museum Harlem and Berkeley Art Museum. He has been working at the National Institute of Art & Disabilities Art Center (NIAD) in Richmond, California since 1986 and was recently the recipient of the …
Marlon Mullen's vision prioritizes images and information in a vivid and personal way. The artist's highly original paintings belie the fact that the subject matter is almost exclusively appropriated–sourced from contemporary art and lifestyle magazines. Advertisements, articles and reproductions of artworks are distilled, transformed and edited, often beyond recognition, into a fascinating composition of dominant gestures and interlocking forms rendered in swirls of bold and tactile paint.
While they withhold vital information, the paintings have a perseverance of legibility as they toggle between representation and abstraction or isolate a particularly poetic grouping of words. As Mullen re-prioritizes line, color and form, often calling attention to something that might not otherwise be considered important or essential, the works reveal our own biases, habits or needs, especially to understand forms and assign meaning.
Mullen's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Atlanta Contemporary, White Columns in New York and JTT in New York. He has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as The Studio Museum Harlem and Berkeley Art Museum. He has been working at the National Institute of Art & Disabilities Art Center (NIAD) in Richmond, California since 1986 and was recently the recipient of the 2015 Wynn Newhouse Award.
Courtesy of Adams and Ollman
