The following is my artist statement for the upcoming show, Deciphering the Devine, at Fort Point Framers (Boston), March 3 - 31. Psst...secret here, and spoiler alert...I never know what the show is going to be about until the work is all together and ready to be framed.
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My work is a visual account of my everyday experiences – a narration of the mundane and sublime in each day and how these seemingly varied experiences exhibit nature's transformative, restorative and live-giving forces.
The work in this show draws from two recent bodies of work, both using the human mind as a centerpiece and references neuroscience, meditation and the remapping of brain circuitry. While the subject of this show draws directly from my cognitive life, the abstract imagery references fragments of indecipherable characters and letters, as well as the natural world of aquatic organisms.
As I work, I try to tap into a state of flow and decipher something not immediately known. A secret alphabet may appear from the swoosh of a gesture line, or the shape of a human heart might be suggested by a crevice in a sea sponge.
All of the mediums exhibited in this show (watery inks pooled on paper or film, thinned oils, and human hair on paper) are difficult to control. This allows the mediums to come to life and exhibit their own natural properties, diminishing my power over the outcome. Working in this manner is like redefining how one interprets the world through cognitive remapping practices, such as meditation. The immediacy of finding a solution, or controlling the situation, seems to fade away and the richness of the details takes hold of the mind.
Kate Gilbert Miller
February 23, 2010