Jacob Muilenburg interrogates painting as an object and site of continuous processes. Muilenburg builds and removes thin washes of oil paint and mineral spirits, allowing the fibers of the canvas to breathe through the composition. Where one brushstroke reveals, another conceals. Paintings wrapped in transparent vinyl fabric obfuscate their underlying compositions. For Muilenburg, the pigments on a canvas act as interlopers–rather than as central focuses–between the internal and superficial structures of paintings. 

Muilenburg received his BA in Religious Studies from University of Washington, Seattle (2011), and received his MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College, New York (2025).