Artist Statement
Biography
Jon Mulhern is a painter, sculptor, and professor whose practice engages abstraction, materiality, and atmospheric expression. Raised in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., he developed an early foundation in art history through extensive time spent in the Smithsonian museums, where he was drawn to the work of Turner, Van Gogh, and Rothko, alongside broader modern and contemporary movements. This was balanced by the visual intensity of Washington, D.C. street culture, establishing a dual influence between institutional history and urban immediacy that continues to inform his work.
Mulhern earned his BFA and MFA/MAT in Painting and Education from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where he also mentored advanced students and collaborated with the Walters Art Museum on educational programming. He went on to work as a painter, sculptor, and professor in Baltimore before relocating to New York in 2008. After establishing a studio practice in Brooklyn, he later moved to Long Island, and in 2022 settled in Sag Harbor, where he currently lives and works.
He is the Founding Director of the Ross School Art Academy and Chair of the Ross School’s Visual Arts Program. In parallel with his studio practice, Mulhern has served as a visiting artist and collaborator with leading institutions including RISD, SCAD, SVA, Pratt Institute, and Parsons School of Design, contributing to advanced studio and critical practice environments.
His work has been exhibited throughout the Northeast at venues including George Billis Gallery, the United Nations, Guild Hall, Southampton Arts Center, the Peter Marcelle Project, M&M Fine Art, and Art Southampton. He has also participated in group exhibitions alongside Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and Elaine de Kooning, and was among the youngest artists included in that context.
Mulhern’s practice is grounded in painting as a physical and intuitive act. His work draws from historical cartography, ancient cultures, Romanticism, Impressionism, postwar abstraction, Japanese aesthetics, as well as Americana and New York street culture, situating his practice at the intersection of historical lineage and contemporary visual experience. Much of his work is developed through gestural, “gut” painting—an instinct-driven process defined by immediacy, physical engagement, and expressive application of paint. His paintings and sculptural works function as immersive atmospheric fields, prioritizing sensation, material presence, and emotional resonance over depiction.
Across both studio and academic contexts, Mulhern’s practice is committed to expanding the language of contemporary painting while remaining rooted in its expressive traditions. His work positions itself within a sustained inquiry into perception, memory, and the material conditions of image-making.