Emily Mullin on creating ceramic sculptures with her husband
Teaming up with her husband for a new show ‘Get a Room’, ceramic artist and sculptor Emily Mullin celebrates collage, collaboration and the beauty of imperfection

While many couples would countersign to how the pandemic has tested the limits of their relationship, the Brooklyn-based ceramic artist and sculptor Emily Mullin instead chose to work with her husband, Tony Mullin, to produce her latest body of work, on view until 8 May at Jack Hanley Gallery in Manhattan. Entitled ‘Get a Room’, Mullin’s second solo exhibition at the space blurs the lines between sculpture, painting and collage with Mullin not only creating the vessels on display, but also the wall-bound reliefs and free-standing sculptural displays that frame each piece.
‘The show title is a cheeky nod to the romance of [the collaborative] process [with my husband]. We share a studio and plagiarise each other's palettes and forms constantly – is that collaborating? I don't know,’ Mullin jokes. ‘We spent so much time looking at images from places we have travelled, pieces from art collections we love, talking about architectural spaces- be that gallery spaces or domestic ones. These works let us imagine things we would want to live within a dream house we don't own. "Get a Room" also speaks to how one displays art, and how one lives with art.’
Portrait of Emily Mullin in the New York studio she shares with her husband, Tony. Below: Dripping, 2021. © Emily Mullin Courtesy the artist and Jack Hanley Gallery.
Inspired by the exhibition designs of the Italian architect Franco Albini and curator Caterina Marcenaro from the 1950s, whose emphasis on lightness and atmosphere redefined how to frame works in architectural spaces, Mullin’s intentionally two-dimensional displays – large scale CNC folded tables and plinths – are based on small, hand-cut paper maquettes which she and her husband composed together.
I love collage, Matisse and things that are less than perfect
‘The sculptural steel displays are fabricated using industrial processes which are generally so exacting. It's been fun to throw a spanner in the works and deliberately replicate rough, hand-cut, folded paper shapes using steel and a CNC press,’ she explains. ‘I build the vessels, similarly by taking flat slabs of clay and cutting out shapes and joining various pieces together. The push and pull on pictorial space in paintings when areas get flattened out is something I like to think about. I'm also interested in what happens when someone takes a photo of these dimensional works, and how everything transitions back to a 2D plane. I love collage, Matisse and things that are less than perfect.’
RELATED STORY
Installation view of ’Get a Room’ by at Jack Hanley Gallery in Manhattan. Below: Spring in Sardinia I (detail), 2021. © Emily and Tony Mullin. Courtesy the artist and Jack Hanley Gallery.
Retaining that paper cut-out quality on purpose, the displays add tongue-in-cheek humour to Mullin’s decorative, sculptural ceramic vessels, which are typically inspired by ‘costuming and embellishment – Grace Jones’ wardrobe, Sonia Delaunay’s stage costumes, Edo period Kimonos, Erte fashion illustrations, West Indian carnival costumes, pre-Columbian jewellery, Sardinian ceramics from the ‘50s... I could go on and on,’ she says. ‘I like to keep the surface of the vessels connected to motifs from abstract painting- whether that's with the washy wild effects of a raku-fired glaze, or through repeated mark-making and patternation.’
Emphasised by a colour palette that draws from Mullin’s childhood growing up in Los Angeles in the ‘90s, the show’s innate vibrancy is further enhanced by fresh floral arrangements that fill each vessel to quite literally breathe life into the display.
‘Theatricality and staging are important to me,’ she concludes. ’I like to think about the construction of images, framing devices, and the language of worship and desire. I've always thought of the works as altars that uplift the vessels and the floral elements that adorn them. There are all sorts of art historical and visual references in there, but fundamentally these pieces are a celebration of handmade objects and the natural world.’
Lace Revivalism (detail), 2021. © Emily Mullin. Courtesy the artist and Jack Hanley Gallery. Below: Installation view of ’Get a Room
INFORMATION
Emily Mullin: ’Get a Room’, until 8 May 2021, Jack Hanley Gallery. jackhanley.com
ADDRESS
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
327 Broome St
NY 10002
Pei-Ru Keh is a former US Editor at Wallpaper*. Born and raised in Singapore, she has been a New Yorker since 2013. Pei-Ru held various titles at Wallpaper* between 2007 and 2023. She reports on design, tech, art, architecture, fashion, beauty and lifestyle happenings in the United States, both in print and digitally. Pei-Ru took a key role in championing diversity and representation within Wallpaper's content pillars, actively seeking out stories that reflect a wide range of perspectives. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children, and is currently learning how to drive.
-
We bring you all the best bits from this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed
As car makers switch their allegiance to the sunny West Sussex countryside as a place to showcase their wares, a new generation of sports cars were sent running up that famous hill
-
Stay at Patina Osaka for a dose of ‘transformative luxury’ in western Japan
From nature-inspired interiors to sound-tracked cocktails and an unusually green setting, Patina Osaka is a contemporary urban escape that sets itself apart
-
12 photographers vie for Prix Pictet 2025, lenses firmly focused on sustainability
Prix Pictet is the world’s leading award for photography and sustainability. Here’s how the 2025 shortlist responded to this cycle’s theme, ‘Storm’
-
Rolf Sachs’ largest exhibition to date, ‘Be-rühren’, is a playful study of touch
A collection of over 150 of Rolf Sachs’ works speaks to his preoccupation with transforming everyday objects to create art that is sensory – both emotionally and physically
-
Architect Erin Besler is reframing the American tradition of barn raising
At Art Omi sculpture and architecture park, NY, Besler turns barn raising into an inclusive project that challenges conventional notions of architecture
-
The dynamic young gallerists reinvigorating America's art scene
'Hugging has replaced air kissing' in this new wave of galleries with craft and community at their core
-
Meet the New York-based artists destabilising the boundaries of society
A new show in London presents seven young New York-based artists who are pushing against the borders between refined aesthetics and primal materiality
-
‘Her pictures looked like pictures everybody knew were the truth’: Diane Arbus at the Armory
Matthieu Humery curates more than 400 of Arbus’ photographs at New York’s Park Avenue Armory – every picture she was known to have printed
-
Mystic, feminine and erotic: the power of Penny Slinger’s bodies as landscape
Artist Penny Slinger continues her exploration of the sacred, surreal feminine in a Santa Monica exhibition, ‘Meeting at the Horizon’
-
What is recycling good for, asks Mika Rottenberg at Hauser & Wirth Menorca
US-based artist Mika Rottenberg rethinks the possibilities of rubbish in a colourful exhibition, spanning films, drawings and eerily anthropomorphic lamps
-
Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the week
It was a jam-packed week for the Wallpaper* staff, entailing furniture, tech and music launches and lots of good food – from afternoon tea to omakase