Mimi Chen Ting

There are many songs that Mimi Chen Ting carries. This is one she sings to herself in the early morning when the sky turns light while she can still see the stars . . . when her day begins. Mimi Chen Ting is a reductive abstract painter with stories to tell. In work as in life, she is irresistibly drawn to distillation and simplification. Most of her work springs from a restive stream of consciousness to question and relate, to stir up ripples and make waves. Her methodology is to initiate, observe, wait, and respond. She does not seek absolute resolutions, but venture forth as an intrepid wanderer, unconcerned with becoming lost. She draws with charcoal on primed canvases pinned to the wall, mixes her paints in bowls, and applies them with brushes. She watches and follows the colors and contours as they ebb and bulge, claiming their space and carving out their part in a narrative. When their interaction is dynamical and emphatic, they invite empathy and promise infinite possibilities. They can change hearts and move mountains; sometimes they even crystallize life’s more fleeting moments and brighten its deeper shadows. This meditative and mesmerizing practice ultimately liberates and restores; she is grateful to travel this path, and she is privileged to share it.