Corbett vs. Dempsey

Jimmy Wright & Mark Mulhern

By Lauren Weinberg. Time Out Chicago / Issue 127 : Aug 2-8, 2007

Taking off from O'Hare on time isn't half as enjoyable as this two-person show, in which Mark Mulhern's softly rendered paintings and monotypes perfectly complement an eclectic assortment of work by Jimmy Wright.

Most of Mulhern's pieces, including the 2007 painting that gives the show its name, depict people in airports: weary business travelers, security guards, parents with restless children, and other individuals waiting to retrieve their luggage, walking through endless corridors or confined by stanchions. Though they are frozen in time together, their disconnection from one another remains clear. But Mulhern seems interested in the bustle of contemporary life as well as its alienation, particularly in the fantastic After Work (2007), in which a young woman walking her dogs down a rainy city street is the only clear figure amid a blur of passersby and traffic.

Wright's acrylic painting Airport (1972) infuses related subject matter with the excitement of an earlier era of air travel: The sparkling nighttime scene depicts a tarmac and a sky full of airplanes that look like spaceships. There is a similar exuberance in Freeway (1972), a tangle of glittering cars and trucks painted on a folding screen, and Sister Colley, a 1971 sculpture of a woman sticking out her tongue. This saucy lady resembles the tough, glamorous dames in Wright's 1972 watercolor series "Untitled (lost women)," whose bulbous faces, sausage curls and heavy makeup give them an intimidating air. Their delicate gestures and smiles, however, reflect a human tenderness that is found throughout the gallery.