Featured Artist Mimi Chen Ting

Artist Mimi Chen Ting uses large planes of color and basic shapes in her compelling abstract paintings. See more of her portfolio by visiting her website.

 

 

Stillness is merely a momentary suspension between breaths in the constant shifting in balancing the act of life. It is my desire to catch this break in movement that pulls me into my studio and keeps me working. But it is the continuous interacting dynamics that swirl around this stillness that inspire the images and make the work become reality.

 

 

I was born during the waning of feudalism in China, during one of its most tumultuous transitions. It was teetering between cultural preservation and political revolution.

 

 

Growing up in Hong Kong, I became well adapted in straddling the incongruity between western colonial protocols, convent school teachings, and centuries-old traditions, attitudes and practices that permeate and cling to me no matter how hard I have tried to scrub them off. These experiences are part of my body memories that I never leave home without. They are reflected in all my subsequent life choices and endeavors.

 

 

In work as in life, I am steeped in the practice of reconciliation and sewing up the seams. I am a reductive abstract painter. I tell stories using lines, shapes and colors in their most basic configurations. This is where they afford both the simplest and most comprehensive means of visual communication.

 

 

To me, they are the direct passage to authentic expression. I am in tune with the abstract vocabulary; I love the flexibility of varied interpretations and responses offered by my audience when they are invited to share of themselves and become active participants of the work.

 

 

My paintings generally begin with the drawing of lines with a stick of charcoal on canvas. They are initiated by a kinetic impulse that causes the body to spring into action, which is in turn sparked by an emotion I am either embracing or fighting.

 

 

For this, I have to thank my early dance and movement training. My experience in performance has also reinforced my feeling that expression comes in unlimited forms. I am just a conduit to a greater truth.

 

 

For it is truth that all artists work for, whatever it’s form or hue, no matter how light or dark, or whether it brings a smile or a tear.

 

 

I am humbled to have been called to do this work. I’m beyond grateful that I had not known that I had any other choice but to answer. I travel a rare path where I can honestly say to myself, without a doubt, that the best work is yet to come. How lucky is that?

 

 

Oh, I also get to live and work in two of the most beautiful places in the country—Taos, New Mexico, and Sausalito, California.

 

Artist Mimi Chen Ting invites you to follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

 

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