Matt Mullican was trained as an artist in California, studying at Cal Arts, before moving to New York City. Mullican is considered one of the core members of the founders of the "Pictures" group of artists. These artists supplanted the language-based work of their predecessors with the use of found images and a renewed interest in pictorial language, often in the guise of systems and structures.

Tied to philosophical and linguistic currents no less than their forebears, artists like Mullican developed languages simulating cyber-code, and supplanted elemental cosmologies for other forms of the sign. In the 1970s, Mullican began to experiment with hypnosis and parallel states, utilizing his own body to create psychological environments and staged events, no less complex than the orders he created with painting.