Marlon Mullen, Longtime NIAD Artist, Lands a MoMA Solo Show

Richmond artist Marlon Mullen’s colorful, stylized paintings have caught the eye of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which recently announced it will host his first solo museum show. Projects: Marlon Mullen will premiere on Dec. 14, 2024 and remain on view in the museum’s free, street-level Projects gallery through April 20, 2025.

Born in Richmond in 1963, Mullen is self-taught and has worked at his hometown’s NIAD Art Center since 1985. The studio supports artists with developmental disabilities, and shares a mission with sister studios Creative Growth in Oakland and Creativity Explored in San Francisco. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art selected Mullen as a prestigious SECA awardee in 2019; SFMOMA has also acquired several of Mullen’s works for its collection.

Much of Mullen’s recent paintings take inspiration from the art magazines in NIAD’s library. Riffing on their covers, his art about art invites a sense of curiosity and play with its bright colors, surprising details and freehand lettering.

“He’s committed to the work of painting, thinking about what it is and what it can be, and to an exploration of abstraction that’s deep and resonant,” said NIAD Executive Director Amanda Eicher in an interview with Artnet. “Like many artists, he’s translating pop culture into form and texture and layers in a way that’s extraordinarily sophisticated.”

Mullen’s work has been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and Atlanta Contemporary, among many other galleries and museums. His MoMA solo show will feature the debut of a new work based on the museum’s 2008 publication, Van Gogh: The Starry Night.