Jill Mulleady
Jill Mulleady. Courtesy of the artist.
Jill Mulleady, Riot on the Holodeck, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Freedman Fitzpatrick Los Angeles/Paris.
There is something particularly current about Jill Mulleady’s paintings. Her vaguely surrealistic scenes entail figures who get lost in private moments on cell phones, or in substance-induced oblivion while objects take on a sinister quality. An atmospheric tension pervades the scenes, curdling the air. Valérie Knoll, who curated Mulleady’s 2017 show at Kunsthalle Bern, noted that the artist’s paintings lure us “into worlds infiltrated by an air of violence and uncanniness.” She added, “They are intense, sexual, cold, and often nightmarish.”
Mulleady’s absorbing paintings have been showing up across the art world with increasing frequency. This year alone, they have gone on view at Berlin’s Galerie Neu, in Art Basel in Basel’s Statements section, and at the Venice Biennale’s “May You Live in Interesting Times,” where the Swiss-Uruguayan artist is showing two series inspired by Edvard Munch’s “Frieze of Life” series. In one, Exterior with Goats (2019), a young woman wanders in a semi-tropical landscape at night alongside prancing goats, while volcanoes simmer in the background. In another, street figures in the glow of L.A.’s golden hour appear engaged in various states of depravity, crisis, or repose. Mulleady, who is represented by Freedman Fitzpatrick and Galerie Neu, is opening a solo show at New York’s Swiss Institute in late September. The show is certain to reinforce her profile as a strong emerging painter.
