Emerging Artists | Reneé Marz Mullis - Southwest Art Magazine

Vision quests

Reneé Marz Mullis, Saturday AM, pastel, 12 x 16.

This story was featured in the November 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art November 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

EACH MORNING BEFORE setting to work at her easel, Reneé Marz Mullis routinely takes a 4-mile walk into the rugged environs of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument to soak in the sparkling light and the distinctly Southwestern terrain. The park—a 496,000-acre expanse of protected land that includes canyons, rocky spires, and rich desert plant life—surrounds Las Cruces, NM, a city Mullis has called home for several decades. Her studio itself sits at the edge of the scenic desert monument. When she returns from her morning walks, the artist promptly starts her workday filled with inspiration. So it’s no exaggeration to say, as Mullis often does, that a lot of her subject matter is right outside her door.

: Reneé Marz Mullis, Autumn White Sands, pastel, 24 x 32.

: Reneé Marz Mullis, Lucky Seven, pastel, 16 x 12.

: Reneé Marz Mullis, Alto Greens, pastel, 18 x 24.

But the artist’s oeuvre of sumptuous pastel paintings—created on black paper to make her colors pop—also divulges her love for subjects beyond Southwestern landscapes. In August Mullis journeyed north to spend the month painting en plein air in Yellowstone National Park as a Yellowstone Forever artist-in-residence. Earlier this year, she won an Award of Excellence at the Mile High National Pastel Exhibition in Denver, CO, for her painting LUCKY SEVEN, depicting a nest full of eggs dappled in delicately rendered patterns of sunlight and shadow.

Influenced by her training in digital graphic design, Mullis describes her style as representational with “a lot of graphic undertones.” Before painting, she always completes a notan, a black-and-white thumbnail study named after a Japanese art concept where lights and darks are the focus. “I’m thinking, what does the bone structure of this painting need to be?” explains Mullis, a former watercolorist who switched to pastels in 2007. She has studied intensively with master pastelist Albert Handell, from whom she learned to strategically control the amount of pressure she applies to her pastel sticks—“light like a butterfly or heavier,” as she puts it—to achieve varying lines, textures, and depth of color.

: Reneé Marz Mullis, Borders, pastel, 24 x 16.

: Reneé Marz Mullis, Building America, pastel, 24 x 18.

: Reneé Marz Mullis, Firehole Cascades, Yellowstone, pastel, 16 x 22.

For Mullis, each new work is an adventure with an indefinite outcome. “When I start a painting, I’m always asking myself why I’m attempting it,” she says. “When I’m comfortable with that answer, I try to visualize it exactly as it should look. The final piece never compares to my vision—it can come out better or poorer—but I’m always thrilled to go on that journey to chase what I initially visualized.” —Kim Agricola

representation
M. Phillips Fine Art Gallery, Las Cruces, NM; Mullis Studio, Las Cruces, NM; Mesilla Valley Fine Arts Gallery, Mesilla, NM; www.mullisstudio.com.