Marlon Mullen
January 8–30, 2016
Adams and Ollman is pleased to announce the gallery's first solo exhibition with the artist Marlon Mullen. The exhibition will open with a reception on Friday, January 8 and be on view through January 30.
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 reprioritizes 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.
On view at Adams and Ollman will be a selection of recent works by the artist that all display an anarchic freedom of color, shape and gesture for which the artist is best known. Included in the exhibition will be a selection of highly abstract paintings including a wonderful work that references Aaron Curry's "Deft Composition" as it appeared on the cover of Art in America, as well as several text pieces such as "I The Misfit" inspired by text from Robert Wallace's 1969 book, The World of Van Gogh.
Marlon Mullen's (b.1963, Richmond, CA) work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Atlanta Contemporary, Georgia, White Columns and JTT, both New York. He has been included in "Under Another Name” at The Studio Museum, Harlem and “Create," cocurated by Larry Rinder and Matthew Higgs, at the Berkeley Art Museum, California, as well as in group exhibitions at Maccarone, New York, International Art Objects, Los Angeles and Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco. 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.
installation view: Marlon Mullen
installation view: Marlon Mullen
installation view: Marlon Mullen
installation view: Marlon Mullen
installation view: Marlon Mullen
Marlon Mullen
Untitled (Van Gogh), 2015
acrylic on canvas
36 x 36 inches
Mm-2015-042-P0005
Marlon Mullen
Untitled, 2015
acrylic on canvas
36 x 36 inches
Mm-2015-046-P0101
Marlon Mullen
Untitled, 2012
acrylic on canvas
36 x 24 inches
Mm-2015-048-P0312
Marlon Mullen
Untitled, 2015
acrylic on canvas
36 x 36 inches
Mm-2015-047-P0102
Marlon Mullen
Untitled, 2014
acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 inches
Mm-2015-054 -P3287
Marlon Mullen
Untitled, 2000
acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 inches
Mm-2000-045-P0064