Painting and abstracting the landscape of the Southeastern United States.
www.micahmullen.com
Saturday, May 1, 2010
20th Mid-Atlantic Art Exhibition
Last week I attended the opening of the 20th Annual Mid-Atlantic Art Exhibition at the d'Art Center in Norfolk, VA. I was fortunate in that my Flanners Beach (bottom image) painting was selected for the show. A very competitive show with only about 30 artists selected. One of the more unique shows I've attended - The juror Laura Roulet selected quite a few photographs and digital works, something I have not seen in most of the shows I've attended. Along with mine I only saw two or three "tradtional" paintings. The work shown by Chris Luckman Kayakers on the Path (middle image) is one of those paintings. The other work shown is that of Kathy Guzman Archival Man (top image). I really liked this work, particularly because it only 8x8" - Alot going in a small area. It is easy to see alot of time and detail went into this work. Overall a great show that I was proud to be a part of!
My paintings are centered on conceptualization evolving over time. For that reason it is important for me to devote equal or more time to each painting I do. Although my skills as an artist increase with each work, my creativity is also expanding. Therefore I must concentrate on painting longer so to accommodate for new ideas.
My style of painting involves creating a complicated background of hundreds of grids of varying colors. When done the background will loosely look the intended composition, From there I concentrate on adding detail to segments of the painting. This method allows me the most expression because different parts are all done at different times. For example a typical landscape composition might have twenty different trees. Painting all the trees during the same session will tend to create too many similarities and thus a boring composition. Patience and time allows my paintings to reflect my varying emotions and moods and in a strange way create a sense of balance and harmony in what are sometimes very detailed and confusing compositions.
Great stuff Micah.
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