Featured Artist Pop-Up with Heather Milliman is the guest artist for Pop-Up beginning Thursday, August 19 to Wednesday, August 25. Read on to learn more about her inspiration, her process, and her work.
August 19 to August 25
I became aware of nature’s beauty growing up on Cape Cod in the 1970s and ’80s. As a child, I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the ocean, the shifting sands, and the constant mosaic of salt-drenched colors and changing light.
I discovered the beauty of the chemical darkroom and the power that photography holds at an early age; the way it shifted my perception of the world was unequaled. Once photography trained my eye, it opened up the worlds of sculpture, ceramics, art from found materials, and mixed media, moving through each medium yet always returning to photography and painting for grounding.
My paintings use a technique I call “reductive finger painting”. Each canvas is loaded with color and then white paint is placed on top of the color layer by layer to slowly edit the unneeded visual information. I blend every color and layer with my fingertips, using brushes only on rare occasions.
The main composition on the canvas – multiple washes of color – is comprised of layers of alcohol inks and clear enamel, which is integrated into the canvas as the color is reduced and white layers are added, so this is both a reductive (subtract color to leave white space) and additive (layer alcohol inks to build layers of color and light) process.
My paintings capture a mood, a certain light as it hits the landscape. Residing solely on the interpretation of the viewer, my paintings are made from acrylic paint, ink, and multiple layers of enamel; they glow from the inside, emitting light, and energy. All of my projects – collage, paintings – even my old sculptures and installation pieces – rely on the aesthetic fundamentals I learned through photography; framing, composition, shadow.
I look to my life-long passion for photography as my North Star in all projects. In fact, many of my projects start out as photos and turn into something else along the way.
For more info about Heather Milliman, check out the following links: