Gentry Mullen has a lifetime of experience as a visual communicator. His training in fiber arts at the Kansas City Art Institute turned into a career in graphic design and, most recently, fine art painting.

Mullen has quickly found a distinct visual voice painting with alkyd – a type of oil paint with a hard-drying resin – predominantly on cut wood or paper, combining graphic surface design with elements of illustrative storytelling. Rabbit, fox, crow, snake, and a Pinocchio-nosed figure hint at familiar narratives.

Mullen’s work reflects the heightened political division and societal unrest seen in the world today. These themes play out underneath mischievous, amusing vignettes. Some of the works in Fact & Fiction are informed by Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio and symbolic of the difficulty of being human. Even so, the artist leaves space for both broader and more personal interpretation, the characters acting as stand-ins for other real or fictitious personas imagined by the viewer.