American painter Thérèse Mulgrew's hyper-realistic paintings focus on intimacy and desire, inviting viewers to compose their own narratives.
Read MoreMulgrew was born in Iowa, U.S.A. She received a degree in English Literature from the University of Iowa in 2013, where she also took various studio art classes as electives to her major. After graduation, she moved to New York to study at The Art Students League and the New York Studio School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture.
Mulgrew was nominated as one of Saatchi Art's Rising Stars: 35 Under 35 in 2020.
Thérèse Mulgrew's paintings are inspired by her family's history with painting coupled with her background in fashion and styling. Integrating her mother's style of surreal painting with her grandmother's impressionist still lifes, Mulgrew creates her own visual language that is striking, nostalgic, and enigmatic.
Her paintings are crafted from images that Mulgrew herself has styled and shot. Contemplating on every minute detail of the image, from the lighting to the poses, her hyper-realistic paintings put great emphasis on truthfulness and intimacy. In works such as Lover's Hands (2021), she fixates on a pair of intertwined hands foregrounding a bright red backdrop, focusing on each wrinkle and crease in the fingers and the way that the light catches these features.
Much of the subject matter around Mulgrew's work stems from her explorations into desire, sexuality, and intimacy. In her solo exhibition Skin Contact (2022), her paintings pulsate with vibrant shades of red and intense shadows, brimming with sensual imagery.
Mulgrew's personal relationships often play a role in her intimate paintings. In the past, she has painted portraits of her friends and those she has close ties with. She has also commented that it is equally exciting to paint strangers, telling Art Plugged in 2022 that it 'can be an interesting and intimate way of getting to know a person.'
Aside from portraiture, Mulgrew also paints still lifes. She has previously painted compositions with fruits and vegetables, as in Red Cauliflower (2021); a telephone, in Forest Green Phone (2021); and porcelain busts, in Multicolored Madonna (2021). These paintings comment on the tradition of still life paintings itself, while also encouraging the viewer to play with their own imaginations to create a narrative for her arrangements. As a painter, Mulgrew has said, 'I like to consider the scenarios that preceded the set up—the tension, the relationships, the stories, the conversations that were shared and the intimate moments.'
Thérèse Mulgrew has held solo exhibitions at the Freight + Volume Gallery, New York and Simchowitz Gallery, Los Angeles.
Mulgrew's website can be found here, while her Instagram account can be found here.
Arianna Mercado | Ocula | 2022
