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