Jill Mulleady: The Passenger

About This Event

Uruguayan-born, LA/Paris-based painter Jill Mulleady gets her first solo museum show here, and it's not comfortable work — a dozen-plus canvases of figures caught mid-threat, pulling from Baroque allegory and Symbolist dread in equal measure. Worth the walk if you want art that lingers past the exit.

Mulleady was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1980, and spent her childhood bouncing between Buenos Aires and Switzerland before training as a theater performer in Paris under Ariane Mnouchkine's company — a background that shows up in how staged and theatrical her paintings' lighting and figures feel. She's now based in Los Angeles, where she's taught painting at UCLA since 2018, and her international profile really took off after a spot in the main exhibition of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.

The Passenger pulls from Symbolism and German Expressionism as much as it does classical painting technique — more Munch and Balthus than anything you'd call comfortable. Worth knowing: the show's included with general admission, so it's an easy add-on to any Art Institute visit through Jan 18, 2027.