Renowned for his immense banners, posters, and oil stick rubbings, Matt Mullican draws from a personal source of forms and symbols to create his utopian city views. His sign-like works are reflections of the familiar pictograms that the one would find in the halls of airport and train stations. He is successful in his attempt to depict an ideal city, or even world with his use of signs and icons.

By 1980, he had developed a formula for his art, breaking his pieces down into representational blocks of color and transforming their scale. Mullican attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he studied with conceptual artist John Baldessari. Some of his designs incorporate computer-generated images that he presents ...