Review

A review of Kevin Mullins's Tales of Brave Ulysses

Kevin Mullins, "Gates of Cerdes," screenprint on paper and vinyl, 97" x 55", 2009. Image: courtesy of the artist

Fisch Haus Studios
Wichita, Kansas
September 24 — November 13, 2009

Looking at the checklist for his exhibition, one would think that Kevin Mullins is a printmaker. But though nearly all of his works currently on view at Fisch Haus Studios incorporate screenprinting, a more careful examination reveals them to be, in fact, paintings. The techniques might be printed, but the aesthetic surely is painterly. Layers upon layers inhabit his canvases, alternately obscuring and revealing colors, patterns, and textures. The few framed prints on paper function more in the tradition of drawing, as studies for the later print/paintings.

The physical layerings of ink provide an apt parallel to the symbolic layerings that meld within the works. Mythological undercurrents exist alongside classic rock reminiscences and art historical appropriations. Even figuration makes a surprising return in Mullins’s largely abstract body of work. The titular series, Tales of Brave Ulysses, is a high point of the show, weaving together all of these layerings. Drawing on Greek literary structure, Mullins lyrically divides the multi-part Brave Ulysses into a system of chapters and choruses. He repeats and transforms a head of luscious, full hair (the hero himself?) and sets each apart with similarly altered repetitions of Hokusai’s Great Wave. While the series perhaps makes reference to Eric Clapton’s lyrics for Cream that tell of brave Ulysses, the sparkling waves, and the sirens sweetly singing, an illustration of a song lyric would be far too simplistic an interpretation of Mullins’s multifaceted work. Cultural and art historical references and personal memorializations of loss are only some of the rich associations present amidst the densely patterened surfaces.

Similar symbolic layerings appear in the Gates of Cerdes series of paintings. Mullins employs an enlarged and intricate lace-based pattern to stand in as grillwork, virtual barriers that partially conceal yet invite the viewer to explore the layers behind. Cerdes, the imaginary mythological location made famous by Procol Harum, becomes in the artist's hands a place of purgatory. In this space of waiting, we wait for the gates to open, for the layers to be revealed.

For someone who is a (self-described) painter, it comes as no surprise that Mullins prints and paints mainly on canvas. He includes, however, a unique and inspired choice of materials in his Gates of Cerdes series (pictured above; please click to see more from the artist's site). Using long strips of salvaged vinyl and photo-sensitive paper, Mullins extends both the notion of barriers and his concept of layering. The metallic strips might initially evoke prison bars, were it not for the incongruous, free-floating nature of the paper. These gates, at least, are not impenetrable: their hidden layers are open for interpretation. -re-