Mulleian 1977
Photo by- Robert Arbegast

In every aspect of one’s perception, even to the essence of meaning itself, all may be informed, indeed transformed, by spiritual energy.

And, it is the artist’s belief that it is just such a power and agency, the spontaneous, autonomous life of the unconscious, which inherently resides in each of us, waiting to show the way. To quote the artist: “Only in the center of our being will we be able to find the guidance necessary to prevent our own extinction.”

Since the 1960’s Mulleian's personal experience has given him a vivid sense of the Now. a timelessness that permeates through all of his work, especially in his nationally and internationally acclaimed 1987 painting entitled "Dies Irae". a powerfully disturbing yet dramatically captivating piece on the subject of nuclear disaster. Author Leonard Roy Frank discovered the artist in 1969, a discovery that led to Mulleian’s first exhibit at the Continental Gallery with sculptor Benny Bufano, and soon after, at the Frank Gallery in the 1970’s. It wasn’t long before the artist’s carrier would peak, and, by 1974, Mulleian was featured in "After Dark", a prestigious national entertainment monthly magazine, published out of New York. In the August 1974 issue the magazine dedicated a special tribute focusing on the city of San Francisco, it’s people and it’s pace setters.

The dynamic historical factors of this artist’s life are numerous, to say the least. He survives a war but he brings home a prophetic vision. He is nearly court-martial for carrying his dismantled rusted rifle parts in a gunnysack in protest of the war. During Vietnam’s Tet offensive, A prophetic intuition warns him of an occurrence that would take place precisely twelve hours later; of a direct hit by a mortar shell, but was prevented by a mystical intervention.

In 1969, a seer's insightful predictions pertaining to the artist's life revealed that he would deliver a great message to the world by millions. yet another vision occurred to him in 1970, as Grace Cathedral’s Ghiberti Doors mysteriously opened for him. In time, his work was brought to the attention of such luminaries as Shirley Temple Black, Vincent Price, rock star Elton John, singer Janis Joplin, American philosopher Eric Hoffer and radical lawyer and civil rights activist William Kunstler.

One moment (whenever he was broke) he is feted in the back alley of a famous San Francisco hotel with a candlelight dinner catered by the head chef, and the next moment, he is dancing at a downtown discotheque with art connoisseur and former dancer, Tullah Hanley. And on January 1, 1973, during the Nixon era and shortly after J. Edgar Hoover death in 1972, he makes a daring admission to the national and international press that he is a homosexual. This candid announcement drew the attention of the FBI to the front door of the artist's studio and insured his place in the events of the time.

In 1977 a near fatal car accident nearly cost the artist his life. And today his message is heard and seen nationally and internationally. Mulleian’s constant and meticulous attention to the rendering of visual aspects of all forms of life and matter, his prophetic insights and an informing imagination, all these factors have allowed his vision to stand out from all the rest. This is true not only through his art, but also in his outspoken views on human rights, the liberation of gay culture in the U.S. and as an anti-nuclear activist. That such an artist from the very beginning has attained so great a proficiency in his chosen field is rare enough. What is truly extraordinary is that he is entirely self-taught.

Familiar objects in unfamiliar context...the juxtaposition of reality without distortion. These are attempts to define the work of San Francisco artist, Mark Mulleian. His style is called transrealism. His technique is a heightened under-painting technique of the Old Masters.

Unique subject usage creates powerful impact and offers involving, out-of-the-ordinary experiences in the visual and emotional realms of contemporary art. Crystallized energy, spiritual warmth, power of concept, and abstract elemental awareness within Mulleian's images capture the imagination with depth in feeling the sentimental to the profound. His realism is so complete that one can experience an immersion (forget that it is a painting) as though experiencing the real thing, such as in this painting by Mulleian entitled "Day After Summer".

It is important to keep in mind when viewing any of Mulleian’s works that, like the artists of the Symbolist movement of the mid- to late-nineteenth century, Mulleian deals extensively, indeed, almost exclusively, in symbolic, often mystical images that express archetypal motifs, exploring as his works do, the themes of spirituality, imagination, and transformation, all within both the personal and social spheres. Much like an even earlier group of symbolists, the alchemists of old, Mulleian’s view of the world, both as it is and as it might be, is expressed through symbolic representations that are drawn directly from his imagination, that is, from his own unconscious, and ultimately, from what is described by the eminent Swiss psychologist Carl Jung as the source of “…an unceasing…ocean of images and figures which drift into consciousness in our dreams…”, [Jung, Carl G., CW8, para. 674], that is, from the collective unconscious. Mulleian’s work is filled with images and motifs that have found their source in the collective unconscious, and it is because of this that the very real objects and settings that appear in his work are almost always symbolic, representing intangible, archetypal ideas with tangible objects symbolic of realities that are as elusive as they are enlightening, as confounding as they are transformative. Using images of very real objects to direct the viewer’s attention beyond the physical realm into a world of ideas that are intended to transform the lives they touch the artist attempts to persuade the viewer of the advantages and benefits of seeing and thinking symbolically. Mulleian begins and ends with the intuitive understanding that symbols comprise the working vocabulary used by the unconscious to visualize and articulate pertinent aspects of the archetype. By applying and adapting these elements, the artist hopes to draw attention to their potential to enlighten with ever dawning consciousness, and transform through inner reflective experience.

Mulleian's technique begins with painstaking and tedious application and manipulation of texture, form, and color tones of the thin impasto under-paint applied to a carefully prepared surface. This primary step is one of numerous procedures, during which five separate techniques merge into a common denominator and create startling realism.

Under-painting, layers of pigment and glazes, permits light to enter the painting and cause illumination from within. Mulleian has developed this procedure to a level of technical excellence of color brilliance and three dimensional qualities. The total result is an intricate complexity of texture, color, lighting, tones, illusion, form, composition, and energy, such as in this Mulleian painting entitled "Bridle Path".

Mulleian has been painting since pre-teen school years and well into high school and is self-trained. It was here that faculty members would purchase or commission works by the young artist. Recognizing Mulleian’s gift, members of the school board as well as teachers furnished him with paints, brushes and an easel which was set up in an old bungalow marked with the number eight. It was here that Mulleian was left alone to paint.

Since the late 1960s, he has had exhibitions in various California locations and extensive multi-media coverage both within and outside the United States. His collectors are widespread throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Australia.

Mark is of Armenian, Black Feet Indian heritage. He was left abandoned by his mother at age three, and spent time in and out of foster homes, and later, in the care of his grandparents Margos and Genevieve Mulleian. At the age of thirteen he would spend many years living with his stepmother Jean Mulleian, along with his three brothers. It was during this period in the young artist’s life that Mulleian acquired his first easel from his step-grandmother, Lola Clark, the mother of Jean Mulleian. The easel originally belonged to an early 1900 painter, William Clark, the great- great-grandson of the legendary American explorer William Clark of the 1803-05 Lewis and Clark Expedition. This hundred-year-old easel established a perfect silent relationship and vital support to Mulleian in perfecting his art in his formative years and early teens throughout the early 1960s.

About this time, at the age of sixteen, Mulleian would be working among other known artists of the bohemian era, the beatnik generation in San Francisco's North Beach, specializing in color, tone and detail of life size wax figures of 1960s icons, ranging from the Beatles and Jean Harlow to various American presidents for wax museum's throughout the US, until he was drafted into the armed forces at the age of eighteen. Mark spent one year in Vietnam and returned to the United States in 1969 to be discovered by author, Leonard Roy Frank who, upon viewing a single eight by ten inch pencil drawing, was the persuasive force, indeed the catalyst, that would launch the artist's career.

Through his use of Transrealism, a perspective from which the artist observes all of the refined elements that our life here
on earth have to offer, Mulleian consistently creates works which are insightful, mysterious and controversial all at once. Through powers which he describes as "trans-mental observation", (intuitive faculties he believes every one of us has), Mulleian establishes his creative position somewhere between the physical and spiritual realms, effectively ascribing to the creative process an alchemical function and character. In doing so, he thus elevates the process of artistic creation to a metaphysical celebration of the spiritual animating the material realm, a sublime transcendence. Within this perspective, Mulleian employs the Jungian concept of the four functions, uniting Thinking, Feeling, Sensation and Intuition. In doing this he is implying in each of his works that the vision of the artist and the perception of the viewer will be informed by all aspects of perception, thus experiencing the subject as completely as possible. That is, the sense of sight will recognize what is seen, (the immediate familiarity of what is seen being the "hook"), thinking will define what it is, feeling will determine its relative meaning and value, and intuition will reveal where it has come from and where it is going. The ultimate intention is that the viewer of the work will experience a transformation, both in perception and in experience, coming away from the work, themselves, transformed. It is no wonder that, during the 70's, the Frank Gallery became a Mecca for a substantial number of members of the hippie culture, many of whom, under the influence of whatever form of hallucinogen, would describe their experience of Mulleian's works in astonishingly similar ways. That is to say, the energy force field within the paintings would literally come alive for them.

To quote Robert Arbegast, after experiencing this same visual phenomenon of Mulleian’s painting in 1977, “It would have been impossible for Muleian’s paintings to have consistently had this kind of effect on people if this kind of energy wasn’t in Mulleian’s paintings in the first place.” One of Mr. Arbegast’s fields of specialty was in energy composition dynamics in art and he understood the physics of the phenomenon only too well.

Arbegast graduated from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ and was awarded the Bachelor of Science Degree in Science Education. He would later move to Trenton State College to do graduate study in organic chemistry and earn an advanced Science Degree. From 1960 to 1973 he taught chemistry at Princeton High School and designed a curriculum for a new approach to teaching methods. He would later move to San Francisco to be part of a growing counter-culture movement that was sweeping the country and finding its unique voice against the war in Vietnam.

This counter-culture, universally known as the Hippie Movement, was a guiding force which helped to galvanize new ways of seeing through individual expression in literature, music, and the arts, and later, evolving into the vanguard of the Peace Movement, served as the catalyst that helped transform social norms.

As time moved on, Arbegast later become a lead trainer in mainframe programming at IBM. He first became aware of Mulleian's paintings through a friend who brought him to the exhibit at the Frank Gallery where, by chance, he was introduced to the artist in person in 1974.

Mulleian's extraordinary attention to detail and vast range of subject matter challenged the art establishment, tempted leading west coast art critics, Alfred Frankenstein and Thomas Albright, and divided committee members of art academies throughout the 1970s. The universality of Mulleian’s work has attracted world prominent figures and people from all walks of life. Yet at the peak of his mainstream influence a dark and terrifying moment nearly cost the artist his life in a near fatal car accident in 1977. An artist’s artist and a crusader for human rights, he has always been regarded by many to be ahead of his time.

In 1968, about the time of the Vietnam Tet offensive, Mulleian was nearly court-martial for carrying his dismantled rusted rifle parts in a gunnysack in protest of the war. During this period there occurred an unusual event, which would save the artist’s life and, through what can only be described as a miraculous event, would change his life forever.

At 9 a.m. on a warm June morning in 1968, standing in front of his bunker, the artist received a prophetic intuition of an occurrence that would take place precisely twelve hours later. Throughout the rest of that day all of Mulleian’s thoughts, feelings and energies were intensely focused on this inner vision, so clearly and intensely focused, in fact, that for the next ten hours, time seemed to vaporize.

Two hours before the event a siren sounded and Mulleian and twelve others took refuge in the bunker, awaiting the moment of certain death. Distant explosions became less distant as the sounds of other hits approached, intensifying the collective fear. Without intent or even conscious awareness, Mulleian began to vocalize the growing anxiety welling up from his inner being. Drenched in sweat and shaking with growing, frantic despair, an unintelligible stream of words poured first softly, then with growing intensity, from his mouth, filling the surrounding silence with this indecipherable plea for protection. This deluge of welling terror built to its deafening crescendo, then, like the sound of the approaching buzz bomb headed for its English target in WWII, the vocalization of approaching terror abruptly ceased, and a deafening silence exploded in its place. For thirty seconds the silence reigned.

At exactly 9 p.m. that same day, a direct hit by a 75 millimeter recoilless mortar sliced through the decade old dilapidated bunker where Mulleian and twelve other’s of his company were sheltered. The mortar shell was designed to spin on its way in a propeller-like motion and cut through its target of two and one half inch steel, the thickness of the wall of an armored tank, and explode within the tank, blowing it an all its contents in every direction. The roof of the bunker was made up of two layers of half-filled rotting sandbags supported by very old, two and a half inch thick dry-rot timber planks. The explosion blew a large hole three feet in diameter, two and a half feet above Mulleian’s head. Hot jagged metal pieces of all sizes rained down and gently came to rest like feathers on the men where they laid on the floor. Sand and dry rot timber deposed the lethal energy of this missile. Or did they? Was it only sand and timber? Was the painting, entitled "Stone Statue Epiphany" by Mulleian, inspired by this profound event thirty eight years ago in this artist's life?

In 1968 a seer foretold events in the artist’s life, events which would eventually come to pass.
Upon returning from Vietnam at the age of twenty-one Mulleian for the first time would unexpectedly meet with a clairvoyant by the name of Madam Flores, a palm reader in central California, who revealed insightful predictions pertaining to the artist. This quiet, simple, humble young women knew nothing about Mulleian nor had she ever met him.

In early 1968 Marie Foster, a young women of twenty-six, for a brief moment came into Mulleian's life. One spring evening, as they drove back from Monterey up a California West Coast highway, they came upon a small wooden palm reading sign alongside the road. With spontaneity Marie pulled the car over in front of the modest weathered wooden house, when she asked Mulleian, "Have you ever been to a seer?" The artist answered "No". Reluctant and shy, Mulleian approached the front door of the house and knocked. The door opened upon a lean young woman who stood just over five feet tall, with olive skin, long ash brown hair and soft caramel color eyes. With a long, warm, gentle gaze Flores gestured for the artist to come in. This quiet, simple, humble young women knew nothing about Mulleian, nor had she ever meet him before this encounter. Likewise, at Marie's suggestion, Mulleian revealed nothing about himself to her. Madam Flores revealed insightful predictions pertaining to the artist's life. An hour passed, and the young woman read both of the artist palms, and she then revealed that he would deliver a great message to the world by millions, that he would be a wise man, and that he would live to be 90.

In part of Flores’ readings she was puzzled by a noticeable single break in Mulleian’s lifeline. The seer wasn’t able to resolve this single mystery. Looking back retrospectively through most of the years of the artist life, one could speculate with clearer perspective on this issue. It is possible that what Flores was seeing, but was unable interpret for some reason, was the artist’s near fatal accident that nearly cost him his life. Flores received the artist without payment.

Three weeks later the artist was discovered by Author Leonard Roy Frank, who would then introduce Mulleian's work to the public consciousness on a national and international scale by arranging his first feature exhibit with San Francisco sculptor Benny Bufano in 1969.

It was during the year 1970, (approximately a year and a half after the artist's profound mystical experience in Vietnam as described in his biography), the young artist once again experienced an unexplained event that occurred immediately after entering through the Ghiberti Doors at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. From the burning flame of a solitary candle, the young artist experiences a vision of the future while standing mesmerized at the foot of the altar at the very end of the Cathedral's central aisle,

This directly lead to the creation of Mulleian's 1970 prophetic painting entitled Forsaken Paradise, foretelling of a world to come that clearly emphasizes an ecological calamity. This six by four foot painting was Mulleian's first of it's kind, and it consequently opened the doors to many of the artist's other greatest works which followed through the decades to come. These include paintings such as The Calendar 2047, a 1971 piece which, like his painting "Forsaken Paradise", depicts a planet in peril, while his 1974 painting "Forces of Man and Nature" also depicts an imperiled planet and the consequences of mans inaction in the face of nature’s warnings. His notable work Dies Irae and "Prevailing Dawn" both foretell nuclear catastrophe. Stone Effigy gives a glimpse into the future through a space/time continuum as both moments blend within a temporal paradigm, also warning us of where we are heading, and The Crypt, a work depicting a critical convergence, unfolding ancient, transformative information yet to be discovered beneath the sands of Egypt, marking the beginning of a New Age. Many of Mulleian's most profound paintings seem to convey prophetic messages as warnings, as well as inform us of the transformative powers within ourselves, again expressed in his work"Ancient Woman", painted in 1973.

This is elaborated upon in Paul Deegan’s "Analysis and Review of an Artist's Work", a comprehensive, greatly detailed examination of the layered nuances in Mulleian’s images. “Analysis and Review” is a study into the mystical dynamics of Mulleian’s paintings, and uncovers hidden metaphysical meanings through the artist’s use of symbolism. The essence of his work indicates that man has the option to change his destiny.

From 1969 through 1970, Mulleian's work was first exhibited at the Continental Gallery, (owned by Leo Hill, and managed by Leonard Roy Frank, located on Stockton Street, San Francisco. Sculptor Beniamino Bufano's works were also exhibited at Leo Hill's gallery. Mulleian was featured from 1970 through 1975 at Leonard Frank's landmark Frank Gallery on Sutter Street gallery row, San Francisco, and again shared space with Bufano. Many notables such as Herb Caen, Janis Joplin, Vincent Price, Shirley Temple Black, Beverly Sills, Elton John, Beniamino Bufano, Thomas S. Szasz, Tullah Hanley, Three Christy Minstrels, Eric Hoffer, Robert Shields and Yarnell, were among the admirers of Mulleian's work at the Frank Gallery.

It was a decade unlike any before it, like a pool of enigmatic energies that indulges the world in new ways of seeing and perceiving. It was sparked by spirited individuals who helped galvanize the 1970’s into the 70’s Renaissance that appeared on the scene for a brief moment then vanished like an enigma.

In one of her earliest visits to the Frank Gallery on a warm summer's eve, Janis Joplin suddenly appeared, standing motionless, in rapt attention amidst Mulleian's paintings. Studying both paintings and artist, she eventually commented on the artist’s heavy subject matter and it’s mysterious energies within the works, as she expressed wonder at their technical expression. Ingratiated by her southern-comfort style of silk and ostrich feathers, lavender and magenta streaking through the air, chiffon trails floating behind her she made her majestic way toward the front of the gallery. She left with a flourish and jaywalked her way through the rush hour traffic of Sutter Street.

Soon after, sparing through the late San Francisco evening air, William Ball, founder and president of the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) entered the front door of the Frank Gallery. Draped in furs, accompanied by two affluent female members of his entourage, in jubilation he walked up to the artist and dropped to his knees in admiration and invited Mulleian's input for art direction and stage set design for a play being produced by The American Conservatory Theatre.

On another occasion, Mulleian would find himself holding and shaking the hand of Shirley Temple Black. In one of her many visits to the Frank Gallery she expressed enthusiastic admiration of Mulleian's work.

And in numerous visits, the mime, Robert Shields, entered the gallery and walked as a robot up to Mulleian. Then, suddenly Shields turned into a frog, leaping high into the air alongside the artist as they went for coffee.

Soon after, William Kunstler, attorney of the Chicago Seven, Many others would follow.

During the 1970’s Thomas S. Szasz, one of the nation's most controversial professors of psychiatry, in one of his visits with Leonard Roy Frank, meets with Mark Mulleian in his studio at the Frank Gallery, while in San Francisco for a speaking engagement.

Thomas Szasz once mailed an old key to Mulleian, who then put the key into a painting and sent it to Thomas Szasz as a gift. The motto in the painting appears alongside a key on a torn piece of paper that reads, "Why not leave hidden the things that are not here and not hide things that are?"

Leonard Roy Frank, author of many books, among them the Quotationary Dictionary (published by Random House) and one of the most prominent human rights activists, building a nation-wide human rights movement, exposing the abuses of psychiatry and electroshock treatment in the U.S. over the past thirty years. Help make possible in bringing forth into the public consciousness the works of G. Mark Mulleian in the late 1960s through the 70s. Leonard Frank arranged Mulleian's first feature exhibit with Bufano in 1969 that lasted to the mid 1970. Upon Bufano's death his works were recalled by estate administrators, consequently expanding Mulleian's exhibit to an ongoing feature at the Frank Gallery, bringing further international exposure, attracting people worldwide.

August 16th, 1970: Death of Beniamino Benvenuto Bufano. World renowned sculptor and lifelong peace activist, Beniamino Bufano was born on October 14, 1898 in San Fele, Italy and was brought to the United States at the age of three. He first came to San Francisco to work on a sculpture for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Afterwards he traveled extensively in France, Italy, and China and, for a time lived with Mahatma Gandhi at his ashram in Ahmedabad , India.

Bufano is considered to be one of the great artists of the 20th century. Playwright Henry Miller wrote of him, "He will outlive our civilization and probably be better known, better understood, both as a man and artist, five thousand years hence." Bufano was also highly regarded by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto , who, along with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was instrumental in getting several of Bufano’s largest sculptures placed in and around San Francisco.

In 1970 Bufano sat for Mulleian in a modeling session, posing his right hand for a sketch. Legend has it that in protest of the First World War, Bufano cut off the index finger of his right hand and sent it to President Woodrow Wilson.

Bufano died in San Francisco on August 16, 1970 at the age of 82. It was Leonard Roy Frank, Mark Mulleian and Leo Hill who discovered his body in his San Francisco Studio. Mulleian, Frank and Ron Raz would ride in the limousine behind Mayor Alioto in Bufano’s funeral procession to Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, just south of San Francisco, where Bufano would be laid to his final rest.

The crossing paths in the careers of Mulleian and Bufano would last a year and a half, a time in which their creative relationship was solidified in their mutual admiration and respect for each other’s work. The death of Bufano is a profound loss to Mulleian to the present day.

In 1971 in San Francisco's Civic Center, Brooks Hall had one of its largest exhibitions, "The Arts and Industry Show." Mulleian paintings, including a mural-sized work of the Crucifixion entitled "Spring Crossing", were a featured attraction and drew viewers by the thousands. Among those attending the exhibit was Grammy Award-winning Mexican rock musician and guitarist Carlos Santana, who expressed great enthusiasm and admiration for the work to the degree that he suggested the possibility of reproducing “Spring Crossing” for a future album cover. Channels 2, 4, 7, and 9 News aired the event and featured Mulleian's contribution to the exhibition.

It was at this time that two charismatic intellectuals entered the artist's life. The first of these was artist / photographer Jacques Andrian Janvier, also known as Jacques Lloyd. The second was Rebecca Campbell, a sister of the Holy Order of MANS, a religious order founded in San Francisco by Fr. Earl W. Blighton in 1960. Both Janvier and Campbell would have extensive and ongoing influence on Mulleian's thinking and creativity, much as others have had before and since. These include author Leonard Roy Frank, Benny Bufano, Thomas S. Szasz, and later, Robert Arbegast and Paul Deegan.

Mulleian's belief that there are certain people and events that come into our lives and are intended to reveal or teach certain facts, realities and truths. These events may inform, enlighten, admonish or encourage, events that alter the way we perceive and make us aware of truths which, without the event, we might never have experienced and understood.

Known for his mammoth sized paintings, in addition to his other works, Mulleian was becoming a big attraction at the Frank Gallery on Sutter Street’s Gallery Row. While painting them high on a scaffold in plain view of public spectators, the artist was often interviewed by the press, who frequently brought their news cameras to document the progress of various paintings and feature them in their columns. Foremost among these was Herb Caen, who made mention of Mulleian and his work several times in his daily tales of goings-on in Baghdad By The Bay.

Characteristic for their strong subject matter, the artist’s challenging themes constantly raise thought provoking questions about man and his place in the universe, depicting man’s struggle with the forces of nature, the metaphysical properties within reality, and transformative hope and rebirth. All of these elements are best exemplified in the daring and provocative early mural sized painting entitled "Progression", painted in 1972 and Forces of Man and Nature, painted in 1970. Mulleian has always been known for fearlessly speaking his mind through his paintings. His greatest horror is for any artist to diminish their work by allowing the popular or conventional influences of the establishment to overshadow the integrity of the creative vision. To capitulate is to lose ones voice.

As author Leonard Roy Frank once said in a television documentary on Mulleian: “What he felt was imported was to express his true feelings and express his true desire to bring to consciousness in other people human possibilities. In that, since his art was really subversive, it was a challenge to the status quo. The status quo was something he wasn’t satisfied with.”

In 1972, the late Thomas Albright, northern California's influential art critic of the San Francisco Chronicle published a weekend edition on Mulleian's new surrealism, accusing the artist of attempting to turn back the clock to literalism and such of those of a bygone era of the Dutch and Italian renaissance masters. Albright found this to be a threat to the sensibilities of the 1970s loosely defined art world of abstract expressionism, conceptualism and experimental modernism. Mulleian responded: "Should I take Albright's comments literally or conceptually?" A day later the San Francisco Examiner ran to Mulleian's defense. Art critic William Zakariasen wrote, "An impressive exhibit of large scale paintings is at the Frank Gallery by Mark Mulleian that has a worthy message with well developed technique to translate it to the viewers. Mulleian's fine sense of perspective and anatomy of heroic figures is reminiscent of Caravaggio. In this same year Mulleian’s exhibit
would appear in Herb Caen’s column of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Writer Stanley Medders, one of Americas noted conservationists and prolific writer on the environment for two decades of the 1970s and 80s, published an insightful article on Mark Mulleian in 1972. Mr. Medders, acclaimed for his numerous feature contributions to "National Parks Conservation Magazine" as well as to "California Living" (a special feature of the weekend editions of the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle), became a powerful and respected voice in protecting our national parks and deserts through his writings on topics ranging from the preservation of nature's wild life, saving San Francisco Bay wetlands, to the city of Santa Cruz's solution to the problem of urban decay.

In 1972 Mr. Medders produced the insightful and perceptive article on the artist entitled "Portrait Of A Man As A Young Artist", a comprehensive study describing the artist's transcendent insights, written in a personal, novelistic style after spending a year studying the artist, his work and public reaction to his paintings. Medders, Mulleian and gallery owner Leonard Roy Frank would frequently meet casually for late evening dinners around San Francisco's Union square through the early 70's. Medders was one of the very few writers of that era who would be able to get close enough for a unique perspective of the artist and his career. Mulleian would eventually regard Stan Medders as a friend.

Although Mulleian had been perceived by many to be quite approachable, at the same time he had a reserved, almost shy nature that kept his public life outside his studio, only allowing small groups of people that he felt comfortable with to enter extensively into his inner creative life.

In January 1973, The Advocate (a national newspaper in the U.S.) published one of the biggest feature stories on an individual of its day, which drew national attention and generated fan mail throughout the U.S. The cover story was two full pages dedicated to Mark Mulleian's art and lifestyle, and his views ranging from human rights and individual sexual expression. It was in the area of individual sexual expression that Mulleian's outspoken views drew the attention of the FBI to the front door of the artist's studio in an investigation into his controversial and challenging commentary on aspects of fundamental social values during the Nixon era and shortly after J. Edgar Hoover death in 1972.

This cover story and the subsequent FBI investigation brought a national outpouring of response by mail to the painter from the Gay community throughout the United States that lasted for over four months. The predominant response from the public was appreciation for Mulleian's courageous and liberating stance by his coming out and speaking publicly in a national and international forum, bringing to the forefront of public attention his homosexuality in a time and era were it was dangerous, indeed illegal, to do so.

Despite the artist's outspoken observations of the national scene, his media attention continued to climb for over three decades, This attention came not only from mainstream media but also from the media of a newly emerging counterculture that was finding its voice in what would later come to be thought of as a bridge between the radical sensibilities of North Beach, (radical as perceived by the status quo), and the dawning of a new age of personal expression and sexual freedom. He was thought by many to be ahead of his time. Mulleian's art and his avant-garde views created a unique relationship with the media of two cultures, a relationship that was not only unprecedented but, indirectly, a testimony to the universality of his work.

Two weeks after the Advocate story broke, a similar two-page cover feature would appear in the European equivalent of the Advocate, the German magazine Him, a monthly periodical reaching a wide audience in Belgium, Denmark, England, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the United States. Mulleian was twenty-three years old.

In 1974 After Dark Magazine, a prestigious national periodical, dedicated a special issue to the pace-setters of San Francisco, featuring Mark Mulleian, along with seventy two other as personalities, such as… Seiji Osawa, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Herb Caen, Charles Pierce, Sylvester, Eric Hoffer, Bill Graham, Robert and Lorene Shields, Scott Beach, Grace Slick, Imogen Conningham, Keith Rockwell, Paul Winfield, Peter Burian, Mitchell Brothers, Ruth Asawa and many more. The photo became one of Mulleian's most famous and has been republished by many newspapers, magazines and periodicals throughout the 70's in the United States. Once again the artist's controversial and …avant-garde views and personal style created an ongoing provocative visual style which became a photographer's delight. He was well documented by renowned professional photographers, as well photography students from the San Francisco academy and other photojournalists and writers who surrounded the artist and his work during that era.

An atmosphere of unrelenting vitality, enchantment and magic, was galvanized by individuals with whom Mulleian would cross paths. From Janis Joplin, to Charles Piece and others, such as Tomm Ruud, principal dancer of the San Francisco Ballet, and Calvin Culver, best known as Casey Donovan in Boys in the Sand, seen together here with Mark Mulleian in
this 1976 issue of After Dark magazine.

It was during this period that Rock Star Elton John along with his partner John Read stepped out of there limo and entered the Frank Gallery to a Mulleian exposition and visited with the artist and his manager Leonard Roy Frank. During which Elton John stood transfixed before a Mulleian painting. The Rock Star points to it, and becomes the owner of Mulleian’s oil entitled "The Pilot Jacket." The image is of an aging 1940s, vintage brown leather jacket with a fir collar. From within the dark wine-red lining, as a teary human eye pears out at the observer.

In the early 1970's promoter Dirk Dirksen discovered Mulleian after reading published articles in various periodicals relating to Mulleian's works. Dirksen would eventually meet Mulleian in 1972 and invite the artist to be his special guest, along with Melvin Belli, in an interview on the San Francisco Viacom Cablevision weekly newsmagazine, Format, hosted by Stephen Matthews, which aired in 1974. Dirksen would write and publish many articles on Mulleian through the 70's, including the headlining news story entitled "Off the Streets", Mulleian's story of eviction from his studio in 1975. This article, released through United Press International, was carried by major television news stations, newspapers and magazines such as, San Francisco Magazine, the Philippine Press, and the San Francisco Progress. In 1976 Dirk Dirksen orchestrated a one of a kind event at the Mabuhay Gardens Theater Club on Broadway, in the heart of San Francisco's Barbary Coast. The unveiling of an epic work by Mulleian, entitled "The Playground", was a gala premier, the news of which would span the distance between New York and the Philippines. Movie and recording star Amapola was among the luminaries who visited with Mulleian after the unveiling, seen in this 1977 issue of After Dark magazine.

From 1976 through 1982 Mulleian had an exclusive exhibit at The Visual Experience Gallery, owned by Edmund Vandenberg, on Ellis Street, San Francisco. In one of her visits to San Francisco in 1980, world renowned connoisseur of the arts Tullah Hanley, after viewing a feature exhibit of Mulleian’s paintings at the Visual Experience Gallery, compared Mulleian’s technique to that of the post-Renaissance Dutch and Italian Masters in composition, detail and his palette of tonal tour de force. Hanley, whose major collection of paintings would eventually be bequeathed to the De Young Museum, descending from the upper gallery in a burst of spontaneous enthusiasm, grasped the artist’s hand, voicing impassioned admiration and praising his work as the best she had ever seen in a long time.

One spring evening in 1977, on his way to his San Francisco studio, a dark and terrifying moment nearly cost the artist his life. Mulleian is struck by a car on Fifth and Mission Street which leaves the artist with two broken legs, bones that tear through his flesh, and a broken left arm, all of which land him at the emergency department of San Francisco General Hospital. Here Mulleian spent six weeks in traction under intensive care after three major surgeries. This near fatal accident immediately hit the west cost newspapers, most notably Herb Caen's column of the San Francisco Chronicle, leaving many stunned by the news.

The public outpouring of sympathy and concern at the news lasted for several weeks. The hospital was forced to organize a special system in navigating the large public response.

His brother Jim Mulleian, a legendary runner for the California International Marathon, was also hit by a car in 1988 in one of his practice bicycle runs for The American River 50 Mile. Unlike Mark, his brother Jim did not survive.

Two months later Mulleian returned to his studio, weakened from weight loss of nearly forty pounds. While recovering, the artist completes two pen and ink drawings, the first entitled “Crossroads”, a work relating specifically to his car accident. While lying on the operating table, as doctors and nurses prepared Mulleian for his second surgery, the artist studied his shattered bones in the x-rays displayed on a wall sized vertical light table next to where he lay. Mentally converting the x-ray image from negative to positive, the resulting visual commentary on the metamorphic nature of the event appears to be a statement on the nature of strength in the face of adversity. The drawing of the shattered bones, like finely sculpted Temple pillars, framing the image of a prone figure, has a visceral elegance expressing strength and transformation.

Soon after, while still recovering from the ordeal, the artist created a powerful and provocative drawing entitled “Death of Hephaestion”. This work later received acclaim for it’s strong composition, particularly noting the arrangement of geometrical shapes of light and shadow, the effect of which ultimately forces the viewers eyes to lock into the grief-stricken eyes of Alexander the Great.

In 1986, one of Mulleian's most popular painting, "The Orphan," received a Public's Choice Oil Painting award in an (international art competition held by Artists' Society International (ASI) at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Over 15,000 artists from around the world participated, 531 pieces of artwork were nominated for the ASI Awards. Of these finalists, including two Mulleian oil paintings, thirty-six became winners of ASI Awards. Mulleian's painting, "The Orphan," was awarded the ASI Public's Choice Oil Painting award, presented by Charlotte Mailliard at the gala event that was hosted by Scott Beach and Claire Isaacs. The Honorary Committee for Artists' Society International included, Dianne Feinstein, Tony Bennett, Gouglass Cramer, Joan Fontain, Burt Reynolds and Red Skelton. The art competition was one of the biggest in U.S. histroy which lasted over a year.

In 1990, the oil painting entitled "Dies Irae," by Mulleian was a featured piece at Gallery on the Square in San Francisco's North Beach. Awe-stricken by the show-peace painting in its incredible power and technique, Art collector and promoter Wayman R. Spence would buy the rights to publish this work for reproductions and later, published in an international book, The Healing Arts. Consequently, the original painting is now in the collection of Wayman R. Spence, founder and owner of Spenco Medical Corporation and WRS Group, Inc. of Texas. This sobering work "Dies Irae" , depicting nuclear disaster, was conceived in 1968. It came to the artist in the form of a vision, while lying in a bomb crater during a large-scale ground attack by the North Vietnamese army as they advanced into South Vietnam. However Mulleian didn't begin the painting until November of 1985. And it was not finished until the spring of 1987. The oil painting is forty-eight by fifty-seven-inches in size. Dies Irae would eventually become Mulleian’s best-known work, succeeding Mulleian’s award winning painting entitled "The Orphan" by 2006.

In 1997, computer programmer, Robert F. Arbegast designed and built this website ( www. mulleian.com ) in dedication to Mulleian's paintings. Mr. Arbegast, in his devotion to the artist and his work, became instrumental in promoting Mulleians art by financing reproduction lithograph prints and post cards. Mr. Arbegast would also write several magazine and newspaper articles on the artist which were published during the late 1970's and well into the 1980's.

In 2002, Paul Deegan, author of "Analysis and Review of an Artist's Work", would enter Mulleian's career. As a dancer of the 1960s Deegan studied classical mime with Jacques Lecoq at his Rue Du Bac School, and ballet at the Place Clichy studios in Paris, and later with Barbara Weisberger's Pennsylvania Ballet Company, performed with guest soloists Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev. Academically, Deegan’s background includes a mid-to-late1970s study in the Bachelor of Education degree course at Mather College, Manchester University, England, with majors in Education, English Literature, and History of Western Art.

Inspired by Mulleian's paintings and the artist's prismatic intellectual depth, Deegan in 2007 would write the most insightful analysis to date and focus on discoveries made from his comprehensive study of the artist's work. Deegan discusses the prophetic quality that permeates this artist's vision as well as the geometrical layering elements, not only in Mulleian's technique but also in his choice of subject matter, composition, juxtaposition of images and ideas, such as in this elegant drawing by Mulleian entitled "Atlantean Pharaoh". The unifying conceptual paradigm throughout his works is manifest in elements which comprise a disarmingly subtle commentary on the metaphysical realities underlying everything from individual human experience to collective world social conditions, as seen here in this painting by Mulleian entitled "After the Hour", themes which resonate with the spiritual and metaphysical nuances in the writings of psychologist Carl Jung.

In April of 2005 one of the darkest days was to fall across the artist’s life. His closest companion, Robert F. Arbegast died after a long, tough battle with liver cancer, and a thirtyyear relationship suddenly came to an abrupt end. On April 23 of that year Robert’s spirit slipped quietly away into the moonlit night.

There in the hospital room, left alone with Arbegast for the last time, Mulleian embraced the body that was once so full of life. After leaving the hospital, Mulleian brought himself to say, "This is the darkest moment of my life, but it's just the beginning.” He went on to say "It was Robert's death, but it is my funeral.” Mulleian’s grief is well translated in one of his most powerful and poignant poems entitled "Metallic Sound", written only days after his companion’s death.

From 1984 to 1991 Mr. Arbegast was a lead trainer in IBM mainframe programming and operations trainees at The Computer Learning Center in San Francisco, and lead instructor at AT&T Professional Development Center, also in San Francisco. By 1996 he had become a proactive consultant and end-user software trainer. With this knowledge in computer programming Arbegast would eventually design and build this website, www.mulleian.com, in dedication to Mulleian's paintings, so that they could be seen and shared throughout the world. The site opened to the internet in 1999.

In 2006, Dirksen-Molloy Production (television producer) produced an insightful biographical interview on Mulleian for "Positive Spin", a national news magazine that was aired eleven times on Free Speech TV via Satellite Dish Network and is carried on 200 Cable access stations, reaching 30 million homes nationwide. Were he talked about his paintings, world situation, war and peace. And was aired ten times in 2007 on "Positive Spin", as this national news magazine celebrates its 100th Anniversary with highlights from interviews with Kofi Annan, former secretary-gereral of the United Nations, Jane Goodall, naturalist, G. Mark Mulleian, artist, and Cindy Sheehan, anti-war activist and many more, with there urgent message for world Peace that was televised nationwide.

In 2007, producer Damon Molloy of Dirksen – Molloy Production completed one of the most dynamic and comprehensive biographical television documentaries on Mulleian to date, entitled "An Artist's View". Noted author Leonard Roy Frank brings together an insightful profile of the artist and his work in an interview in which he talks about Mulleian and public reaction to the artist and his works. It was Frank who discovered the artist in 1968 and arranged his first exhibit with Beniamino Bufano in San Francisco in 1969. Paul Deegan, author of “Analysis and Review of an Artist’s Work”, introduces Mulleian’s paintings in a narrative beginning with a visual Cosmic explosion. Illuminated in a dramatic scene through the eyes of the artist into a time portal, an ancient mirror, compelled by electrical impulses, explodes into a supernova with the 1987 work entitled Dies Irae, which warn of nuclear disaster. This then opens an impressive gallery sequence of the artist’s work and it’s stunning detail.

Mulleian's "Moccasins" and "Lost Journey" exemplify this very point. The painting entitled Moccasins is a sublime example of this detail revealed through individual grains of dessert sand. This is also exemplified by fields of grass in the painting entitled Lost Journey. The story behind the painting Moccasins questions our mortality. While the painting Lost Journey depicts an old wagon and other relics abandoned on the rolling prairie by pioneers whose secret, locked in a trunk and guarded by the seasons, tells a tale of a mysterious force with a face that only the eyes of faith could see.

The entire segment is narrated by Faith Winthrop, renowned San Francisco Jazz vocalist-songwriter and singer-in-residence at the legendary hungry i, who performed there in the 60s with such luminaries as Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Jonathan Winters and Woody Allen. Ms. Winthrop is featured here in an explosive, dramatic Gallery sequence, unfolded by her elegant voice, unlocking the story behind the paintings.

This enthralling documentary was executed by award winning film producer Damon Molloy and narrated by Molloy along with Faith Winthrop, taking nearly two years to complete.

In 2009 International Day of Peace A Global 24 Hour Internet broadcast, telecast via Radio and Free Speech TV,
presents Mulleian's visionary painting Dies Irae,

The United Nation's International Day of Peace, celebrated September 21, 2009 launched an annual worldwide event; a global movement sponsored by the Unity Foundation in co-operation with Pathway to Peace, the United Nations, and many other organizations. For the first time in media and internet history the world joined together to see this unprecedented, twenty four hour broadcast, simultaneously reaching Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas, all countries around the world, bringing together many articulate, creative individuals and activists for peace. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, UN Under Secretary-General for Disarmament Sergio Duarte, Salil Shetty Director of the Millennium Campaign, and US President Barak Obama were joined by other celebrities Elie Weisel, Michael Douglas, George Clooney, and peace activist Dr. Jane Goodall. Others included musicians and singers Sir Paul McCartney, Sting, Michael Franti, Lisa Nenzo, and the rap group Luminaires, all with the intention of bringing the worlds attention to urgent, pandemic global problems. These problems include poverty, hunger, environment, education and health care issues, Aids, equality for women, nuclear disarmament and human rights. In the one hour feature presented by the Unity Foundation's award winning news and public affairs television program "Positive Spin, artist G. Mark Mulleian introduces the segment focusing on disarmament with a dramatic presentation of his visionary painting Dies Irae, followed by President Barak Obama's 2009 speech from Berlin, proposing an international treaty with the goal of zero worldwide nuclear weapons by the year 2020.
This Worldwide broadcast was also televised nationally on FreeSpeech Satellite television.

On June 26th 2010, a documentary on Artist G. Mark Mulleian aired on Positive Spin, a national news magazine on Free Speech TV, via Satellite DISH Network and Direct TV, reaching 50 million homes nationwide, and carried by over 200 Cable access stations nationally.

In this half hour Documentary producer Damon Molloy and Positive Spin host Bill McCarthy, introduce one of the finest half hour documentaries “Analysis and Review of an Artist’s Work, G. Mark Mulleian” by art curator and author Paul Deegan. Deegan reveals the hidden meanings behind Mulleian's paintings, including his most powerful work Dies Irae, a prophetic view of nuclear disaster and environmental devastation, with hopes of the raising of people’s consciousness, human potentials and possibilities.

This airing occurred just days after an historical event in the media world. On June 23, 2010 DISH Network linked up with Direct TV, doubling Free Speech TV’s national viewership via this second satellite network.

On August 1st of 2010 Dirksen/Molloy Productions broadcast Mulleian’s unique perspective on the homosexual and bisexual community’s role in the Human Population Equation. Here on Positive Spin, a national television newsmagazine which aired on BAVC Channels 29 and 76, San Francisco, Mulleian comments on his controversial views relating to the intricate ecologically assembled safeguards provided by nature. The program opens to James Lecesne, founder of the Trevor Project, the only 24 hour crisis and suicide lifeline for Gay, Lesbian, BiSexual, Transgender and Questioning youth in the U.S. This program was also aired on Free Speech TV Satellite Dish Network and Direct TV. An expanded version of this particular Mulleian segment was originally filmed and aired in 2009.

Mark works in his San Francisco cottage studio where he is creating his current collection.