Whitney Biennial 2019
May 17–Oct 27, 2019
Marlon Mullen
56
Floor 6
Born 1963 in Richmond, CA
Lives in Rodeo, CA
Marlon Mullen drew the images for his paintings from the covers of art magazines such as Artforum and Art in America—though he often subtly transforms them, leaving out letters such that the meaning is changed. Layering on generous amounts of paint, he creates balanced surfaces that focus on the abstract composition of forms. Mullen often pulls his sources from magazines and art publications at NIAD (Nurturing Independence through Artistic Development) Art Center, a progressive art studio in Richmond, California, that supports the endeavors of artists with disabilities. Painting’s role as a type of visual language takes on added significance for Mullen, an artist with autism spectrum disorder who communicates mostly nonverbally. His specific use of color, gesture, and abstraction creates an embodied conversation with the artist, his source material, and the viewer.
Untitled, 2018
Marlon Mullen, Untitled, 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 36 × 26 in. (91.4 × 66 cm). Photograph courtesy NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA; Adams and Ollman, Portland; and JTT, New York
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Marlon Mullen
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Timothy Buckwalter: I'm Timothy Buckwalter. I'm the Director of Exhibitions at NIAD Art Center in Richmond, California.
Narrator: NIAD stands for Nurturing Independence Through Artistic Development.
Timothy Buckwalter: We're a progressive art studio that works with Marlon Mullen.
Narrator: Mullen’s preferred subject matter is magazines, especially art magazines.
Timothy Buckwalter: We had a donor at NIAD who gave us an exhaustive library of Art in America, Artforum, and ArtNews from the nineties to the two thousands. So Marlon would look at the magazines, and either through paint visually transcribe, either the covers or certain ads from the magazines, or combine different ads to create a new image with text.
The paintings have a real physicality to them almost like a, I want to say gooeyness, but not the consistency of icing, but very similar to that. I mean he tends to pour and push the acrylics, so they tend to build up. We've had him mixed sand with things. If the titanium white that we get isn't white enough, he'll mix in our hand soap with it. It kind of foams up and become super, super white.
Marlon's on the spectrum for autism, [and] he has aphasia, which is a disability that we don't know a lot about, but it is the reason that Marlon doesn't talk. Really what gives him pleasure and what he focuses on is painting.