MILDRED KING

MA Studio Art

When I’m in my studio, I’m not working as much as reacting to what is going on with a painting. My eyes tell me how the painting  reacts to my touch with color, texture, and shape. Forms can shift between representation and non-representation as the dialog with the painting progresses. 

I start each painting with an idea and then it becomes an exploration between myself and the development of space on the canvas. Sometimes I’ll use the same structure, then I add or subtract elements.  I like working on more than one painting at a time because it becomes a conversation, the paintings and I all communicate on some level.

Repeating the process in more pieces allows me to extend myself, and answer questions that arise, like what if, or does it convey emotion, and is there visual excitement? This pushes me ahead on the road. I have noticed that when something in a painting becomes the inspiration for another painting, it all adds up to be a most pleasurable journey back to an interior reality, my Self.

This process of interaction and repetition is fed by being aware of things around me in my environment, and by other artists works and conversations.  All these things leave impressions and I use some of them in paintings to  create atmosphere and moods. 

 For me, the act of painting becomes an exciting, conscious three-way conversation between my ideas, the process, and painting. Ideas generate process, through process, the painting and I have a conversation, then process generates ideas. I am exploring the ways in which inner and outer consciousness work together in tandem and how the integration of meditation and action results in the creative expression.