The fact that he simultaneously includes himself in his art and allows his presence there to be eclipsed by the universal emphasizes the force of the maelstrom of being that he senses, the eddies and currents in the great scheme of things. Mullican’s invented emblems embody essences, revealing a cosmological reality wherein the individual (Mullican) dreams himself at the center not only of his own self (the subjective) but also of the holistic (the world), both of which are affected or controlled by forces visible (the elements, the things of Earth) and invisible (fate). The images in Mullican’s flags and posters are ideograms, drawn and designed by the artist (whose name often also appears on the surface, like an additional symbol or sign) these ideograms push into timelessness those archetypal, primal events and acts of interpretation in which all “tribal” cultures seek their identity. Bringing latent iconographic systems to the surface, his artifacts document an otherwise elusive world history. He has sought out a code, an order, that identifies what is experienced on the personal level with social language, and has crossed the limits imposed by the individual signature so that he can render in visual terms the essentials, the essences, at the foundation of collective existence. Mullican sets up an osmosis between the two possibilities. It can emerge from the individual, from an investigation of the roots of the personal unconscious or it can unfold from an exploration of archetypes, emblems, and memories in the collective mind. Symbolic power can be created in contrasting ways. One finds demons, angels, heaven, and fate interwoven, along with dark defining spaces, black holes that swallow up the world. They evoke both what is contained in the human and what is above or outside it, from medieval times to the present along with primordial images of, for example, birth and death, one finds symbols from science and history, biology and cosmology, and figures both elemental and personal from the worlds of both God and man. His banners and bulletin boards include not only iconographic elements from non Western traditions either extinct or on the point of extinction, but also newer icons of more contemporary communication. His work tries to operate on all levels of the mind such an effort must necessarily invoke a symbolic vision, and Mullican’s art is studded with symbols, with figures and emblems representing a kind of visual solidification of archetypal constants in the collective unconscious. Mullican wants to bring diverse planes of experience together in art, to address nothing less than the meaning of the universe. His is a comprehensive, idealistic, mystical view of life using anthropology to imply a whole network of values, representations, and behaviors, he offers an all-encompassing vision of reality, a synthesis whose every aspect is integrated within an articulated and structured visual system. Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.MATT MULLICAN’S ART acts as his consciousness, and he employs it to trace the possible coordinates and potential laws underlying the great scheme of things.
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