Catherine Mulligan’s work confronts the viewer with the dialectical relationship between delusion and reality, authenticity and distortion. As source material, Mulligan cites observed reality coupled with advertisements and tabloids for her portraits of dilapidated store fronts and (often-times headless) fashion models. Though advertisements and tabloids utilize a different medium than soaps, they convey a similar message--an exaggerated existence of drama and extrava-gance. Through the inversion of color, Mulligan furthers the separation of reality and the illustrated image. The artists’ storefronts conjure a suburban dystopia, muddied with dismal shades of grey paint that are scraped off, reapplied, and then scraped off once more.
Catherine Mulligan holds an MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington. She has recently shown at Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn; Hans Gallery, Chicago; Kunst im Tunnel, Dusseldorf; and Gern en Regalia, New York. She is a two-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant. Security is the artist’s West Coast debut. Catherine Mulligan lives and works in New York.