Miry

DECEMBER 2022
Oil on Linen (16 x 18”)
Stoneware Ceramic  

       
mir·y     /ˈmīrē/

adjective: miry
very muddy or boggy.
"the roads were miry in winter"


Miry is an ode to my childhood upbringing of following tradition, going against the grain and learning that not every action must result in a premeditated outcome. It was an experimentation of play and intuitive mark making. I went through traditional art training as a child, learning to paint with traditional techniques, doing still-life and figure studies. This was the only type of art I was told is beautiful. As I am an independent artist now, I have gathered new ideologies from my experiences and am slowly rebuilding my mental definitions of art. At times I still find myself analyzing art I consume and create under the scrutiny of my old teachings. To break this, I am abandoning the strive for consistency, creating works that do not have to fit into a series or collection.


My process involved building up small, light strokes to create larger spaces, not defined by lines or form, by depth and texture. I used a large saturated brush to map out the overarching spaces I would work within, moving in a meditative motion.


The marks I made following this, I found I created meanders in my space. Meanders are bends formed in a river channel from when water erodes the banks on the outside of the channel, nature’s own method of weaving and decorating the earth. The water deposits sediment on the inside of the channel, creating curved river patterns. This year, I haven spent more time outdoors than I have in the past, and the influence can be seen in my work. The reflection of our biology in the works we create, and the work we consume which influence us; they were all biological materials at one point; the influence of nature on us all is beyond our understanding or control.


I came to understand this connectivity this year as I was learning to grow mushrooms with my partner. Mushrooms and humans share much of the same DNA, a concept that was hard to grapple at first, but when you see the growth patterns of the mycelium, which looks the same as the arteries running inside humans, I quickly came to see the artist that is mother nature. Fractals, a mathematically infinite and repeating pattern, found in snowflakes, trees, and human blood vessels, are translated in Miry, through the lens of my own perception. With my fixation of mushroom cultivation, I subconsciously translated that into my work.


I took inspiration from Moran Trabelsi, a ceramic artist who works in organic forms, hand building rounded floral-like vessels. She is inspired by the underwater world, ocean life forms being her muse. As all life forms originated underwater, her work is a narrative of humanity’s history and continuing evolution. Yoshitomo Nara is another artist which brought me inspiration. He is a Japanese multi-disciplinary artist whose subject matter is a childlife human form, depicted with a mature gaze. His mix of technical skills and curiosity in his paintings spoke to me; his view of his pieces is that of play and pure inspiration from his environment. Being a creator who enjoys exploring different materials, I looked to Nara for how to translate an idea into different mediums, without it becoming a new, separate entity in the process. Going from a 2D medium to a 3D, I had to make connections that weren’t blatant. I did not just want to color coordinate my two pieces, I wanted their presence to align. This meant that their creation process had to be the same. I worked on both pieces simultaneously; had I worked on my painting that given day, I would also go to the ceramics studio to edit my body of clay; this allowed me to keep a continuity in both pieces.


Miry is an early work in my exploration of freedom as an artist. I look forward to continuing this adventure and seeing where I am led.