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PAST EXHIBITION
Mark Mulroney
We're Never Getting Out of Here With That Attitude
February 4–March 16, 2013
Mixed Greens is ecstatic to announce Mark Mulroney’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. The drawings, carved wood panels, murals, and objects in the show began with the simple vision of a man stranded on a desert island with a palm tree, two coconuts, and maybe a girl.
While many people spent time in 2012 contemplating the Mayan calendar and mankind’s eventual demise, Mulroney turned his focus to the idea of paradise. Ageless one-liner jokes involving a man stranded on an island began to remind him of his own situation in the studio. The simple idea of the studio-as-island quickly gave way to a more complicated vision where the island is both an escape and a prison.
In addition to reading Gauguin’s letters from Tahiti, studying Tarzan imagery, and internalizing clichéd tropical sunsets, Mulroney investigated 30-years-worth of Playboy and Penthouse magazines in preparation for the show. These vintage magazines have significant influence beyond the obvious role naked women play in Mulroney’s lexicon. The Playboy gag cartoons are especially inspiring (many include a desert island), and the paper of vintage porn is as fetishized by Mulroney as the images printed on it. Mulroney appreciates the remarkable quality and texture of vintage paper that is absent today. Although there is not always a direct connection between the paper’s source and the drawing, a hedonistic appreciation of material is obvious when referring to both form and content.
The graphite in many of Mulroney’s drawings mimics the gray expanse of Rochester and Syracuse where Mulroney has lived for several years. But paradise prevails in the drawings’ painted overlays, the colorful, carved wood panels (he began to hone the carving technique when imagining the studio as his island), the murals full of palm trees and coconuts, and the inflatable sculptures dotted throughout the gallery. But don’t expect everything to be idyllic—while the island is a warm and welcome relief from the day-to-day, it is not free of the less-comforting associations with escape and isolation.
Mark Mulroney received his MFA from The University of California at Santa Barbara. His first solo show in NY was with Mixed Greens in 2004. Other solo show venues include Galleries Goldstein, London, England; Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Ever Gold, San Francisco, CA; ebersmoore gallery, Chicago, IL; ArtSpace, New Haven, CT; Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Richard Heller, Los Angeles, CA; and The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. Group exhibition venues have included Park Life, San Francisco, CA; OKOK Gallery, Seattle, WA; Evergreene Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland; The National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland; RAID projects, Los Angeles, CA; Finesilver Gallery, Houston, TX; The University of Nevada, Las Vegas; the San Francisco Art Institute; the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum; and the Laguna Beach Art Museum, CA. He has been written about in numerous publications including artforum.com, the Los Angeles Times, and Flash Art. Mulroney currently lives and works in Syracuse, NY.
For more information, please visit markmulroney.com
Download Press Release
Mixed Greens is ecstatic to announce Mark Mulroney’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. The drawings, carved wood panels, murals, and objects in the show began with the simple vision of a man stranded on a desert island with a palm tree, two coconuts, and maybe a girl.
While many people spent time in 2012 contemplating the Mayan calendar and mankind’s eventual demise, Mulroney turned his focus to the idea of paradise. Ageless one-liner jokes involving a man stranded on an island began to remind him of his own situation in the studio. The simple idea of the studio-as-island quickly gave way to a more complicated vision where the island is both an escape and a prison.
In addition to reading Gauguin’s letters from Tahiti, studying Tarzan imagery, and internalizing clichéd tropical sunsets, Mulroney investigated 30-years-worth of Playboy and Penthouse magazines in preparation for the show. These vintage magazines have significant influence beyond the obvious role naked women play in Mulroney’s lexicon. The Playboy gag cartoons are especially inspiring (many include a desert island), and the paper of vintage porn is as fetishized by Mulroney as the images printed on it. Mulroney appreciates the remarkable quality and texture of vintage paper that is absent today. Although there is not always a direct connection between the paper’s source and the drawing, a hedonistic appreciation of material is obvious when referring to both form and content.
The graphite in many of Mulroney’s drawings mimics the gray expanse of Rochester and Syracuse where Mulroney has lived for several years. But paradise prevails in the drawings’ painted overlays, the colorful, carved wood panels (he began to hone the carving technique when imagining the studio as his island), the murals full of palm trees and coconuts, and the inflatable sculptures dotted throughout the gallery. But don’t expect everything to be idyllic—while the island is a warm and welcome relief from the day-to-day, it is not free of the less-comforting associations with escape and isolation.
Mark Mulroney received his MFA from The University of California at Santa Barbara. His first solo show in NY was with Mixed Greens in 2004. Other solo show venues include Galleries Goldstein, London, England; Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Ever Gold, San Francisco, CA; ebersmoore gallery, Chicago, IL; ArtSpace, New Haven, CT; Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Richard Heller, Los Angeles, CA; and The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. Group exhibition venues have included Park Life, San Francisco, CA; OKOK Gallery, Seattle, WA; Evergreene Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland; The National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland; RAID projects, Los Angeles, CA; Finesilver Gallery, Houston, TX; The University of Nevada, Las Vegas; the San Francisco Art Institute; the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum; and the Laguna Beach Art Museum, CA. He has been written about in numerous publications including artforum.com, the Los Angeles Times, and Flash Art. Mulroney currently lives and works in Syracuse, NY.
For more information, please visit markmulroney.com
Download Press Release