<strong>Lee Mullican </strong> was always a lonesome visionary, even when part of the Dynaton group. His brand of abstract surrealism, responsive to all other brands, is like no other. At once tightly controlled and explosive, Mullican's imagery fuses the astral and the organic into shimmering fields of profound visual depth - and equally remarkable low-relief surface, built up stroke by careful stroke with a printer's knife. Mullican never let this signature technique degrade into empty stylization, but in the 1950s - following Dynaton's dissolution - he explored myriad forms and images, color combinations and optical elaborations, ranging from the extravagant to the minimal. By the end of the decade Mullican was tending more to the Zen simplicity of monochrome, especially white, and the reduction, if not suppression, of compositional complexity. The selection of Mullican paintings comprising his gallery's initial contribution to the Pacific Standard Time initiative touched on most of his 1950s experiments with form - at least the successful ones - and proved constantly surprising. (Marc Selwyn, 6222 Wilshire Blvd., LA; closed. <a href="http://www.marcselwynfineart.com/" target="_hplink">www.marcselwynfineart.com</a>)
- Peter Frank
<strong> LEE MULLICAN, The Sounding, 1953, Oil on canvas, 30 x 50 inches, © Estate of Lee Mullican, Photo: Robert Wedemeyer</strong>
