In Mark Mulhern’s painting Wedding in Brittany, a scattered crowd gathers on a rocky beach. The figures are simple in detail yet expressive in shape: one crosses their legs in conversation, another hunches and points toward a walking bride and groom. These small movements are caught in time, framed at a distance by a wide, bright landscape.
Festive scenes like these are a hallmark of Mulhern’s work, but rather than snapshots of a specific moment, they’re a blend of different ones. “It’s more a memory than a photograph,” says Graeme Reid, director of collections and exhibitions at the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
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A retrospective at MOWA running through July 21, “The Pleasure of Seeing,” recognizes the Milwaukee-based artist’s nearly 50-year career. Many of the exhibition’s paintings, monotypes and sketches are sourced from private collections around Wisconsin.
“When people come in here, they always want to see a piece from Mark,” says Becca Sidman, the director of sales at the Tory Folliard Gallery, which has represented Mulhern since 1988.
Mulhern is a people-watcher; he depicts scenes from a distance without a particular focal point and includes details such as turned backs and trees in the foreground. He often paints public squares in Europe, featuring local architecture and fashion.
“Travel seems to allow me to pay more attention to body language and how people are,” says Mulhern, 73. But he also portrays familiar spots here in Milwaukee, including Colectivo’s lakefront coffeehouse.
He starts by sketching while observing a crowd, taking notes on colors, clothing and mood, and then uses these fragments in creating his monotypes – a form of printmaking using paint and glass. Figures from these prints make their way into his lively paintings.
When he was a young man, Mulhern’s work was less approachable. Take the cramped composition of 1985’s Untitled Portrait, where fly paper, an undressing woman and a blank-staring subject impart a more chaotic tone. During the ’80s, his bold, vibrant pieces coincided with the emerging neo-expressionism movement (think Basquiat), which garnered him some national recognition.
When the style fell out of fashion, Mulhern took the chance to reconsider his art. “It seemed like [my art] was so much about me, and I got kind of tired of it,” he says. “I wanted to look out at the world instead of looking in.”
Over time, Mulhern’s subject matter shifted from spontaneous to planned gatherings, a transition that coincided with his son’s wedding. “It kind of reinforced the whole idea of these festive events, how universal and uplifting they are,” he says.
In order to fully appreciate Mulhern’s work, one must view it in person, Reid says: “They’re not small, and they’re not intimate. They take up your field of vision.”
And with myriad colorful characters and details, there’s a lot to discover. Reid says one lender for the exhibition told him she’s always finding something new in her piece. Art like that, Reid says, “just gives you constant pleasure.”
