Paul Mullins: “Some Other Day in the Garden” at Nathan Larramendy Gallery
“Some Other Day in the Garden,” Paul Mullins’ first solo show at Nathan Larramendy Gallery in Ojai revealed a great deal of subtlety in its examination of contemporary masculinity. Mullins’ earlier work includes drawings like Kisser (2003), a realistic rendering of a man, eyes closed with pleasure, kissing a pig’s snout. The recent work puts aside such extremes in favor of the more ambiguous realm of reality. In four large acrylics and six small drawings on paper, Mullins, who was born and raised in Appalachia, focuses on such familiar masculine terrain as fishing and hunting. In photorealistic compositions like Big ‘Un, only the fingertips of the masculine hero are visible as he tenderly cradles his catch. Such an image of a prize fish would not be out of place in the pages of Field & Stream, but it is Mullins’ attention to the balance between tenderness and violence that makes these paintings unique and exceptionally poignant.

Mullins’ “sad dog” portraits of pit bulls also strike this tenuous balance. The 2007 acrylic Anything for You Baby pictures four of the dogs, eyes soft and pleading. They look nothing so much as old and worn out. The promise of the title is extreme in the mind of man’s best friends; they have endured pain for their master (one of the pack is depicted with ears cropped brutally close to his head), but the dogs continue to look upon him with love and respect. Animal violence is unleashed in Mullins’ show-stopping, 5-foot-tall painting from 2006, Closer to the Heart. A muscular white dog stands protectively, teeth bared in mid-bark, over a small, wide-eyed Boston terrier. This painting, like Big ‘Un, emphasizes the contradictions of masculinity: the male is both aggressive and protective, violent and vulnerable. Closer to the Heart also makes evident Mullins’ distinctive blend of drawing and painting. Exhibiting confident and expressive lines in pencil, as well as sketchy but lush brushwork, even the physical properties of Mullins’ paintings gesture toward the contradictions at the heart of contemporary masculinity.