In space, no one can hear you scream … but in London’s Soho, fans of artist John R Mullaney’s incredibly detailed paintings will be screaming with delight, now afforded the rare opportunity to view some of his incredible work in person at The Troubadour Gallery – and, possibly, buy some.
Running until 10th May 2025, John’s “Building Bigger Worlds” exhibition, which opened last week, features unique artwork celebrating films such as Aliens, Star Wars and Halo.
John’s art has featured in, among others, Alien: The Roleplaying Game, Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report by SD Perry, Halo Warfleet, publications for Games Workshop, and Dorling Kindersley’s recently re-released Star Wars: Complete Locations (a new edition), and Star Wars: Incredible Cross Sections.
The show is a co-production with the Troubadour Gallery and Hollywood fixers, Golden Ticket London. The gallery, in the heart of Soho, specialises in contemporary and rare exclusive artwork such as John’s.
Reading-based artist John R Mullaney has been creating highly detailed cutaway artwork featuring locations, architecture, vehicles, spaceships and weapons from major sci-f cinema properties, for more than two decades. Each piece undergoes a laborious hand drawn process, taking months to complete. The finished art has been approved by some of Hollywood’s biggest studios and printed in a range of officially-licensed bestselling books, which fans of the movies and TV shows enjoy reading.
The “Building Bigger Worlds” exhibition is John’s first-ever exhibition and sale of collected works of the hugely popular paintings, spanning 25 years of creativity.
Due to the nature of studio-licensed art, John’s paintings cannot be reproduced as prints, meaning the art that’s about to be made available for sale is unique, and no further copies will be available.
“Once these pieces are sold, they are gone,” says John, who has selected thirteen large format original paintings, depicting some of science fiction cinema’s most famous hardware. In addition to Aliens, Star Wars and Halo, the exhibition includes art from the cult sci-fi series, Firefly and Serenity.
John’s cutaway artworks show extensive interior architectural detail – the cutaway of Serenity revealing the cockpit, cargo hold and living areas, right down to the carpet and furnishings.
The artworks are available to view, and buy, at The Troubadour Gallery in Smith’s Court, central London until 10th May 2025. And as there are just a baker’s dozen being exhibited, demand is expected to be high.
John is also an award-winning film-maker and visitors to the exhibition will be able to view John’s short films, including those capturing the creation of several artworks on display presented in dynamic time-lapse sequences.
When creating every piece, John aims to emulate the film-makers he admires, who achieve their shots with minimal digital post-production, by similarly accomplishing almost all of the art on paper. He spends hours researching the film’s production design reference, as well as watching and freeze-framing the films to capture every detail and ensure they are screen-accurate.
His artworks are initially planned and mapped out in detail on A3 tracing paper, and once approved by the studio and publisher, he scales up the artwork onto A1 300gsm watercolour paper, before beginning the extensive pencil and inking process.
Only after this exhaustive series of planning and approval stages is complete does he start applying multiple layers of watercolour and gouache to produce incredibly detailed and complex paintings, rich in depth, colour, texture and detail to convey the used- future aesthetic of the universes he’s depicting … including getting any chrome finish spot-on.
Hundreds of hours go into perfecting the paintings.
“This is the first time my work has ever been exhibited, and the first time that fans of these series can savour the scale of the size of these original artworks – I produce my work at a large format scale to achieve as much detail as possible – so these pieces pack a big visual punch.” John says. “In a digital world where we see so much on tiny screens, it’s always refreshing to be able to see big art in the flesh like this.
“I’m super excited to be collaborating with the amazing team at the Troubadour Gallery and for people to see these pieces,” John continues. “I’m a huge sci-f fan and love these franchises, so I obsess over the details, the colour and the mood of the subjects; I aim to match not just the content but that all-important cinematic feel.
“If I’m doing a cutaway and showing the interior spaces of a ship, I try and give it the same evocative lighting that you see in the film or the show.”
• “Building Bigger Worlds” runs until Saturday 10th May 2025 at The Troubadour Gallery 14 Smith’s Court, London W1D 7DW
• The Troubadour Gallery is online at troubadourgallery.com
• John R Mullaney is online at johnRmullaney.com
• Read an interview with John R Mullaney on SciFi Bulletin
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Art and Illustration, downthetubes News, Events, Exhibitions, Film, Other Worlds, Science Fiction, Star Wars, Television
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