Gerben Mulder: Solo Exhibition
"Gerben Mulder's paintings ride the razor's edge between figuration and abstraction, and while carrying on a long painting tradition, they possess a dynamic freshness."
MPV Gallery is proud to present a new solo exhibition of recent paintings by Gerben Mulder, on view from 9 May through 27 June 2026.
Born in Amsterdam in 1972, Mulder has lived and worked between New York and Rio de Janeiro since moving from the Netherlands to the United States in 1993. A self-taught painter, his Dutch roots keep him closely connected to European art, while his time in New York and Brazil infuses his work with an unmistakable expressiveness.
The new oil paintings on view at MPV Gallery this spring span two of the artist's defining subjects — the human figure and the flower — yet are united by the same raw, urgent energy that has long made Mulder's work impossible to ignore. New York Times art critic Roberta Smith situates Mulder's work in the gap between Raoul Dufy and Jackson Pollock — between essentially figurative painting with traditional themes on the one hand, and abstract expressionism on the other. His spiral brushstrokes, graphic-like and retro-modernist in their mark-making, bring a contemporary edge to these classic genres, while his iridescent palette emphasises the psychological dimensions of his subjects — melancholy and euphoria held in equal measure.
The works on show are among his most recent — fresh from a period of intensely physical painting in which Mulder converts the studio itself into an extension of the canvas, working oneiric narratives into the surface through considerable effort and sheer painterly instinct.
Mulder's work has been shown internationally at venues including Art Basel, Frieze London and New York, the Armory Show, MOCA Tucson, Kunsthal Kade in Amersfoort, and Kunstverein Cologne, and is held in public and private collections across the USA, Europe, South America and Asia.
The exhibition opens on 9 May 2026 and runs through 27 June 2026.
