BIOGRAPHY
NIGEL MULLINS
(b. 1969 Makhanda, South Africa)
Nigel Mullins’s works, from Chaotic Region (2013) and beyond, present the disparate images of human existence as a compendium of fruitless tropes that have perpetrated, sustained and perpetuated Western culture since the 18th century. The works draw every sacralised view and arch-theory into question. Even the designation ‘human’, with its defining sets of ideologies, has become an obsolete remnant, exposing every pedagogue and hero, every defining character as, at the very most, ineffectual. The paintings reflect the enveloping totality of contemporary culture and posits it clearly as a deadlock between past and present.
His painterly exploration makes use of sumptuous impasto, veering between figuration and abstraction without restraint, the lashings of paint (both sensual and viscous) conveying the turmoil and restlessness of our times. Mullins applies his material as libations covering a sacred artefact or an amulet: fetishistically. The paint, dense in meaning and referential value, thickly covers the support as it alters and constructs. This explicitly references the painting as a thing; a support to which meaning (as material) is applied often in layers and over an expanse of time. It is not that the thick patinas of paint have no regard for the frame, and thus no consideration for the delineations of border. Rather, they recognize the boundaries specifically, some even bare their marginalia, titles and subtexts as physical ‘charms’ suspended from below. Every painted mark, like the wiry phrases affixed to the frames of the paintings is a litany petitioning nothingness and a no one.
The insistence of the materiality of paint exposes the frame-laden subtexts. It recognises these as definitive entities, rich in cultivated meaning. The medium treats them physically in the same way that it treats the subject matter. With the sensual gesture and drama of paint application, Mullins’s work then finally turns on the paint itself and exposes the sedimentary material as concomitant to the myths of Western civilisation. It is the vehicle and medium that imagines our underlying desires, hopes and fantasies – the futility of its so-called gains.
EDUCATION
1993 Master of Fine Arts, with distinction, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
Paintings For Jubilant Temporal Ideologies, Everard Read, London, UK
2021
The Time Keepers, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2019
Mass Gatherings, Everard Read, London, UK
2018
Glorious Order, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2017
Artefacts from the Anthropocene, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
2016
21st Century Talismans, Everard Read, London , UK
2015
The Obsolete Remnants of the Industrial Age, Fried Contemporary, Pretoria, South Africa
2014
Buy You Time, Equus Gallery, Western Cape, South Africa
Chaotic Region, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein, South Africa
2013
Chaotic Region, curated by Tanya Poole, Rhodes University Alumni Gallery and Standard Bank Gallery, South Africa
Chaotic Region, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2008
Caveman Spaceman, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2006
Earthlings, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2005
Ends and Escapes, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2004
Pacifier, ABSA Bank Gallery, Johannesburg. South Africa
2003
Fix, Rhodes University Alumni Gallery, Albany Museum, Grahamstown Arts Festival, South Africa
2001
Hopeful Monsters, Hanel Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Superhuman, ROSL, London and Edinburgh, UK
Hopeful Monsters, Hanel Gallery, Wiesbaden, Germany
Hopeful Monsters, Lithographs in Collaboration with Fine Line Press
2000
New Work, Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
1999
Superhuman, Hanel Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
1998
ROSL Prizewinner Exhibition, Continuum, Landings Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
Continuum, Lamont Gallery, London, UK
Momentum, Grahamstown Arts Festival and Association of Arts, Pretoria, South Africa
1994
Window into the South African Landscape, Grosvenor St, Mayfair, London, UK
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2023
What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
110 Year Anniversary, Everard Read, London, UK
2022
Spring, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
Things I’d like to remember, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Seduction, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2021
In Conversation, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2020
Summer, Everard Read, London, UK
Masterpiece online, with Everard Read, London, UK
Staring Straight to the Future, online exhibition, Everard Read, UK & South Africa
Pink, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
Odyssey, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
2019
CONTEXT Art Miami, with Everard Read, Miami, Florida, USA
Southern Aspect, Everard Read, London, UK
2018
In the Forests of the Night, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
2017
Bronze, Steel, Stone, Everard Read, London, UK
FNB Joburg Art Fair, Everard Read Booth, Johannesburg, SA
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Everard Read Cica Booth, Cape Town, SA
Summer, Everard Read, London, UK
Reality Check, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
2016
Summer Exhibition, Everard Read, London, UK
Reality Check, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2015
1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, CIRCA Gallery Booth, London, UK
FNB Jo burg Art Fair, Everard Read Gallery Booth, Johannesburg, South Africa
Cape Town Art Fair 2015, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Empire , Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2014
Cape Town Art Fair, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Johannesburg Art Fair, Johans Borman Fine Art, Johannesburg, South Africa
Winter Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2013
Tom Waits For No Man, curated by Gordon Froud, Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees, Oudtshoorn, South Africa
Weerberig, Curated by Luan Nel, Aardklop, South Africa
Kunstefees, Potchefstroom, South Africa
Johannesburg Art Fair, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2011
MullinsPoole, the Bettendorffsche Gallery, Germany
2010
View From The South, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
On Colour, Colour a Colloquium. Albany Museum, Grahamstown, South Africa
8th MUMIA – Underground World Animation Festival 2010. Brazil
Juncture. Painting from South Africa. Nigel Mullins, Tanya Poole, Luan Nel. artSPACE, Berlin, Germany
International Festival of Animated Film of Fortaleza, Brazil
2009
Johannesburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa
X2, Albany Museum, Grahamstown National Arts Festival, South Africa
Hang in There, Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2008
Johannesburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa
Between Meaning and Matter, Bell-Roberts, Cape Town, South Africa
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
ABSA, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum
Ann Bryant Art Museum
Deloittes and Touche
Ernst and Young
Hollard Insurance
Ken Logan Art Collection, USA
KPMG
Nandos UK
Oliewenhuis Art Museum
Old MutuaL Bank
Pretoria Art Museum, Sanlam
Rhodes University Collection
South African Association
Spier Art Collection
SAB
SASOL
Telkom, Rand Merchant Bank
Westminster and Chelsea Hospital Collection, London , UK
ZENECA
SELECTED AWARDS
1997 First Prize, Royal Overseas League 14th Annual Exhibition. London.
1999 Nominee for the Daimler Chrysler Award for Contemporary South African Art
2000 Merit Prize, ABSA l’Atelier