LEE MULLICAN

ARTIST

LEE MULLICAN | COMPUTER JOY

MUT-3-2.TGA (COMPUTER JOY)

Crayon Country

The 1970s marked a stylistic shift for Lee Mullican. In the early 70s, Mullican began to experiment with a more analytical approach to his painting forsaking the use of explosive color and freewheeling organic forms from the previous decade. True to his signature technique, Mullican utilizes striations of paint in varying densities to create the forms and space. These matchsticks of color are arranged vertically and parallel over dark blue grounds somewhat like transparent woven work or a dark doorway. Mullican used these marks to build lyrical patterns or dense forms that hover between being particle fields and opaque shapes.
The influence of the then-novel dot matrix imagery of early computer-aided graphics is apparent in Mullican’s work of the 1970s and 80s. Through the dark grounds and proto-pixel imagery Mullican achieves a futuristic quality, a computer-tech look, with screens of pulsating blips that appear spectral and electronic. Mullican would later explain the parallels between working physically and digitally were apparent, “I examined why I thought the computer was for me. Even in my paintings, I was always working with patterns and lines, and color. I’ve had a built-in computer ever since I’ve been doing art.”

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As pioneers of digital art, Herbert W Franke and Lee Mullican have left behind a significant legacy. Anika Meier discusses the artists' impact on today's digital art and NFT scene with representatives of their Estates, Susanne Päch and Cole Root. 

EARLY DIGITAL ART'S INFLUENCE ON NFTS

HERBERT W. FRANKE & LEE MULLICAN: PIONEERS AND THEIR LEGACY

MAGAZINE

The exhibition presents pioneers from different generations, early 1950s until today, working in the field of generative art. On view will be, among others, plotter drawings, generative photography, sculptures, and NFTs from 30 international artists. In collaboration with ELEMENTUM.ART.

GROUP SHOW

THE THINKING MACHINE. PRESENTING PIONEERS, 1953-2023 | GALLERY & SHOWROOM

EXHIBITION

Lee Mullican (1919-1998) was a modernist painter best known for his linear palette knife technique. In the mid-1980s at the age of 67, Mullican began working with UCLA's Program for Technology in the Arts to explore how this signature painting style might translate to the emerging digital imaging technology of the day. Mullican started working with the IBM 5170, equipped with the Truevision Advanced Raster Graphics Adapter (TARGA), and a Summagraphics Summasketch stylus to experiment with painting and drawing on a computer. Replacing his brush and signature palette knife striations with a clickable mouse and pen-like stylus, Mullican was able to merge the late Surrealist method of automatism with the computer's instant and precise replication of marks. He stated, "I found that beyond what one thought, the computer as being hard-lined, analytical, and predictable, it was indeed a medium fueled with the automatic, enabled by chance, and accident to discover new ways of making imagery." <meta charset="utf-8">ABOUT COLLECTING THE NFT The NFTs were minted by the Estate of Lee Mullican and can be viewed on <a href="https://opensea.io/collection/lee-mullican" data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-href="https://opensea.io/collection/lee-mullican">OpenSea</a> here. The NFT will be transferred to the collector’s wallet after the purchase. ABOUT THE NFT Contract address: <a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0x391237023b875607a66b7dd6312cae4a40eb2d47" style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;">0x391237023b875607a66b7dd6312cae4a40eb2d47 </a>Token standard: ERC-721 Blockchain: Ethereum Metadata: Frozen and decentralized

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Lee Mullican

LMT-11-4.TGA, "Computer Joy"

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