Marlon Mullen working on a painting at NIAD Art Center

For nearly 40 years, Marlon Mullen has been based at the NIAD Art Center in Richmond, California. The progressive art studio is one of three founded by psychologist Elias Katz and artist Florence Ludins-Katz in the Bay Area in the 1970s and 1980s. On the occasion of the exhibition Projects: Marlon Mullen, the artist, his sister April Johnson, NIAD facilitator Andrés Cisneros-Galindo, and NIAD Director Amanda Eicher gathered to discuss Marlon’s practice at the studio with Ann Temkin, MoMA’s Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, and Alexandra Morrison, Curatorial Associate in the Department of Painting and Sculpture.

Ann Temkin: When did Marlon first show an interest in art?

April Johnson: When you say art, do you mean painting on a canvas or just any type of expression? Because I wouldn’t call it art, but when we played Legos together, he was thinking creatively. I’m following the instructions on the pack, thinking, “I need to build a tower and then put two little columns right here.” And this dude’s going crazy. I was probably six or seven, so he would have been 24 or 25.

Alexandra Morrison: What are the ways that Marlon would have first come across, say, painting or sculpture? Do you have memories of going to museums together or some kind of art display?

AJ: As far as going on outings to museums, I don’t recall. We went to the theater and to gospel musical performances at church in Richmond and all over the Bay Area. But he was a magazine guy. He had magazines on his nightstand. He used to circle items in magazines—think Jet or Ebony—and leave them open to show me or our mom. And he knew the difference between something like a JCPenney catalog and a magazine. He would rip out pages and hang them up in his room. Our mom was a magazine person, too—she loved fashion.

AT: Are you surprised that Marlon became a painter in the way that he did?

AJ: I’m surprised the world recognized him. Well, not the world, but people recognized him. But his creativity has always been visible to me. But I think it’s outstanding that other people are noticing it and digging it, too.

AM: When he first went to NIAD and started making art—drawing, printmaking, painting—what stood out to you most about his work?

AJ: My first memory has got to be the ice cream cones. Do you remember those?

Andrés Cisneros-Galindo: Yes. I kept the monotypes.

Marlon Mullen. Untitled. 1990. Linocut. Courtesy the artist and NIAD Art Center

Marlon Mullen. Untitled. 1990. Linocut. Courtesy the artist and NIAD Art Center

Marlon Mullen. Untitled. 1990. Monoprint. Courtesy the artist and NIAD Art Center

Marlon Mullen. Untitled. 1990. Monoprint. Courtesy the artist and NIAD Art Center

AJ: Our grandmother had one blown up on her wall over her 8-track player. And my mom had a bunch. They were prints, not on a canvas.

AT: Printmaking came first?

AC-G: Yes. I was hired as a printmaking teacher at NIAD in 1984, a couple of years before Marlon arrived, and so I forced the group I worked with to make prints. We had an intaglio printing press and produced monotypes and sometimes monoprints. And that’s when Marlon started making those ice cream cones. And then he had a series of self-portraits. Or at least that’s how I see them; my assumption is we always start from the “me.” I proposed only the medium, print or paint.

AT: At what point did Marlon leave printing behind and turn to painting? What was that transition like?

AC-G: Everybody was doing painting and prints at the same time. I think actually that he jumped into painting after just a few months with us.

AJ: The other iconic work I remember is the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s when I thought, “Oh, he might be up to something.”

AC-G: And birds, too—paintings on paper.

Andrés Cisneros-Galindo with a portfolio of the artist’s early works on paper. Courtesy NIAD Art Center

Andrés Cisneros-Galindo with a portfolio of the artist’s early works on paper. Courtesy NIAD Art Center

AM: The books, magazines, and print material at NIAD are everywhere and overflowing. Did Marlon always show interest in those? Or when did he start picking things up and leafing through pages?

AC-G: There was an artist in the studio working with collage. So we used to bring over all kinds of magazines. Then everybody else started doing the same. This would have been in the early 1990s. We had received boxes of National Geographic, but he never gravitated toward those magazines. More to the art ones. So my assumption is that he liked the illustrations, the artwork in the magazines.

Amanda Eicher: Someone who really paid attention to Marlon’s practice at this time was Tim Buckwalter, our exhibitions director. I think he and Marlon worked so well together. They both had an eye on what each other were doing. And at a certain point, a friend of Tim’s donated a complete run of Artforum magazines to the studio, which everyone loves. Lots of people working at NIAD think about this. But for Marlon, it’s a basis for abstraction. Receiving that huge set of source material—Artforum, Art in America, Frieze—shifted the focus of our library of source material. In 2015 I came to NIAD and there wasn’t a lot of storage for them, so they moved a lot around the studio. Now, they live on rolling carts.

AT: How do you see Marlon interact with these resources in the studio?

AC-G: Marlon picks everything himself. In this way, I find myself learning as I’m teaching. At first, I was trying to figure out how each person works and then provide them with the materials that are necessary, or some structure if needed. I saw that difference between teaching in a college and teaching at NIAD. There are actually very individual ways of learning and working. In the end, I believe that art making makes everybody happier. And people looking at their work and liking their work makes them happy. It gives someone a place in the world.

AE: The Katzes understood this, as they were working in a moment of extraordinary activism and advocacy, and they were very aware of the Lanterman Act, the disability rights movement in California. They recognized that, as people left mass institutionalization, self-ownership was important for people with disabilities. And I think that’s what people found in the studio. You know, to make work is a huge part of that, and to do it day after day. Then to exhibit work and to sell work provides a continuity to that practice that makes it a career or a profession or, as Andrés said, a reason to exist, a purpose, an identity. It does sometimes create competition, having artists work in a shared space where their work is also regularly exhibited. Recently, a visitor to NIAD asked Billy White, who’s been practicing side by side with Marlon for decades, “Have you seen Marlon’s paintings?” And Billy said, “No, I’ve never seen them.” And, you know, Billy is very successful in his own right. He has a great career. But still in our community there’s that kind of friendly competition.

AM: If you had to make a prediction, how would you describe Marlon’s painting in the next five years or in the next decade? What do you think is next for Marlon?

AE: That’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves ever since arriving here in New York.

AC-G: His most recent painting, with the single figure there, is quite different from, I would say, something from the late 2010s.

The artist’s work table at NIAD. Courtesy NIAD Art Center

The artist’s work table at NIAD. Courtesy NIAD Art Center

Marlon Mullen. Untitled. 2024. Acrylic on canvas

Marlon Mullen. Untitled. 2024. Acrylic on canvas

AE: They’ve also grown in size, which has been a conversation. At one point Marlon’s gallerists and NIAD ordered a number of different sized canvases, and we just observed and noted what worked for Marlon and ordered more. He’s also painting the spines: the painting is becoming more sculptural. During his visit to MoMA in January 2024, he was so interested in Elizabeth Murray’s shaped canvases and in how a painting can be a sculpture, too. Time is also a really interesting aspect of Marlon’s practice. A blank canvas might sit on his workstation for almost a month. That’s just the prep. And that might be the secret to what comes next. He can take his time. He can make a circular canvas. He can make an enormous canvas if he wants. And so we don’t know what will come next. But I would guess that it might be more experimental.

AJ: Still, Marlon pays attention to certain details. I’ve always noticed the barcodes in his paintings. It’s interesting because when he has barcodes or something on his clothing, he’ll black it out or paint it out. One of the NIAD studio facilitators, Liam, calls it “correcting the imperfections of his clothing.” Take for instance a Nike tracksuit. He’ll try to wipe off the logo. Or he’ll use paint in the same color as the suit and paint over it. But when he does art, that’s one of his main things. I don’t know if he feels that he has to paint them because they’re there and he can’t paint over them. It’s really interesting. He used to dress up in a suit to go to NIAD, wearing his Sunday best Monday through Friday.

AE: You know, Marlon really cares for the general environment of the studio in a way that we can depend on. It’s part of his preparation, putting the studio in order. It does really feel like such a gesture of care now after so many years. It’s always very orderly and Marlon helps keep everything organized.

AC-G: Marlon has his area in the studio and works on a table. There’s sort of a ritual before he starts working; he removes everything that does not belong—and what belongs can have a lot of interpretations—but he removes everything that is around in his surroundings and really cleans up his table before. He’ll clean up everything and everybody else’s stuff, too. Sometimes he will throw away some useful things. He’s ruthless in that sense.

AT: I’m not going to show Marlon my office!

AC-G: And he would start working after 11:00, instead of 9:00 like most of the students. He will work through lunch and breaks. He goes nonstop until five minutes before leaving. The buses are there, then he will rush and eat his lunch. His lunch is an artform because it’s in colors.

AE: Last week, Marlon had set up source material, a Horizon book, that had a very specific pink salmon color and illustration. And Marlon’s drink on that day was kind of a dark pink. And it got watered down to the exact shade of the Horizon pink. And then he placed it next to the paint, which has already been mixed for the project. He’ll probably not get to it until next week. But that drink, Marlon replaced every day. The paint is mixed. It’s been mixed for about two weeks. And it is open on the table and will be used when he gets back. And my guess is that the paint will be of the consistency he prefers by the time he returns. We think there’s a lot of timing in what Marlon does. You know, it might look like procrastination, but we all know that materials change over time. And he has achieved extraordinary results with them and can’t be really swayed from his plans—I think because they are good plans.

AJ: And sometimes those plans include breaks. You know, you just want a day off sometimes. You know you’ve got to clock in but deep down you’re thinking, “I’m just not feeling it today.” But then, like Amanda said, he’ll just tidy up the studio, walk around, visit, maybe wander, take a brisk walk to the store real quick. He’ll just kick back and walk around. And then right when it’s time to clean up, he’ll be ready to get started.

Projects: Marlon Mullen is on view at MoMA December 14, 2024–April 20, 2025.

Watch a video of the artist at work at NIAD.