Paul Nudd is a Chicago-based artist who has been described as “quintessentially Chicago.” Nudd’s larger than life, full-body drawings depict terrifying mutants–alien/human mash-ups besotted with tumors, warts, lesions and growths–who find redemption in disease, reveling in genetic mutations, bad pharmaceuticals and environmental degradation. Nudd’s figures map a bizarre physicality representing life, growth, bacteria, mold, and monsters.

Nudd’s smaller mixed-media portrait paintings emerge from thick swaths of paint. He refers to the seemingly random yet tightly composed surfaces as “material cannibalism,” a self-contained system of highly textured materials sealed in layers of gel medium. These heads/non-heads are often surprising–brightly colored and fluorescent forms speckled with various bumps, lumps and skids captured in dead-on portrait fashion.

Paul Nudd’s work has been shown in extensively in Chicago as well as at Bourouina Gallery in Berlin, Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, and Western Exhibitions in Chicago. His work has been included in group shows in Dusseldorf, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Houston, and Denver. Nudd’s extensive graphic work can be found in several national artist book collections including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, and the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. His collaborative prints with the comix artist ONSMITH have been written about in Art in Print. Nudd received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001. He lives and works in Berwyn, Illinois.