Mark Mullin: Sticks and Stones
Mark Mullin, "making animals," 2017
oil and acrylic on canvas, 80” x 78"
Mark Mullin has chosen a great title – Sticks and Stones – for his latest show at the Paul Kuhn Gallery in Calgary. And there are sticks, so to speak: stubby linear marks that contrast with smoky washes, globular shapes and other painterly gestures.
In making animals, for instance, fallen "sticks" are jumbled in the middle of the canvas like the remnants of a collapsed building. Overhead, thin layers of brown paint drizzle downward like a series of frayed sheer curtains; warmer yellow hues dominate below. At the left, two large maroon silhouettes photo-bomb the scene, awkwardly intruding much the way people poke their heads into a doorway to interrupt a meeting. These rounded forms echo the shadows created in hand puppetry, an activity Mullin did as a boy with his father. Flat and still, these forms might well be the titular stones.
Mullin describes this new body of work as less polished than earlier efforts. The change, he explains, is related to his decision a year ago to try painting on paper. He found he was working in a “clunky, brutish manner” and was exhilarated by the results. So much so that he’s included some works on paper in the show, which continues to Oct. 7.
Mark Mullin, "sticks and stones," 2017
oil and acrylic on canvas, 50” x 42”
Their mood seems to have carried over to his subsequent paintings on canvas. While the visual language is still recognizably his, he says it’s like a different dialect, one that occupies “a stage of playful awkwardness.”
Mullin, who grew up in Edmonton, teaches at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary. He emerged quickly after earning his MFA at Montreal’s Concordia University in 1999. In 2004, he was a finalist in the RBC New Canadian Painting Competition. Later this year, he’ll be in a show of works on paper at the Beers gallery in London.
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Mark Mullin, "the big finish," 2017
oil and acrylic on paper, 30” x 22”
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Mark Mullin, "two shadowy friends," 2017
oil and acrylic on paper, 30” x 22”
Paul Kuhn Gallery
724 11 Ave SW, Calgary, Alberta T2R 0E4
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