Mimi Fox: Artist Statement

The Artist Goes to Sea
September 4-30 @ Brian Marki Fine Art

The Sea is the life source of our planet and I have always had a great love for its life giving waters and beauty. Mythically the ocean is considered to be the Mother of Nature. She has many biblical references and her fame continues on today.

She is also friend and foe to the fishermen. Present day fishermen contend with the same sea upon which the great battles of the 19th century were fought. A typical Salmon troller runs a boat no larger than a small sailing vessel built about 150 years ago to fight on the open ocean. Even the larger trawling vessels are about the same size as a small frigate of the 1850’s. The fisherman’s skills and traits are the same today as were the requirements to meet the challenges of 100 years ago.

I view the fishermen of today as a walking monument to human labor.

The work is a direct result of my own experiences at sea with the fishermen. I went out with them as galley cook and when there was time I sketched and wrote and documented my experiences for material to investigate in the surface of my canvas. In the studio, away from the tight confines of the boat, I have a greater freedom to explore the continuum of the open sea through the continuum of the open canvas. I have used oil paint to almost sculpt the surface of the sea and it’s movement. Color is used to modify the space, illusion and tension and it is intended to imitate the light at different times of day and the weather on the open sea.

Although the paintings are abstractions of their subjects, I hope that when one views a group of my paintings that they may perceive the sometimes monotony and long hours of the work and the ruggedness and strength of a people.

I like the freedom the backdrop of the sea affords me, it fosters invention, and the formations of the water surface happen in relation to my feelings. By being in the boats in the sea and not at sea, I am often times cut off from distance as the boat rocks and dips.

This experience results in my flattening out the special concerns in a painting so that they become more of an object of paint and play, rather than a window where one sees through into infinity. By the inclusion of still life/ties, handrails, lines and or a few simple necessities, I use them to create a tension in a painting and to point to a bodily reference. The result I am after is a coherent whole that is my own vision of marine painting. A coherent collection of incidental shapes, lines, planes and colors where the viewer sees and experiences all in a flash.

In the figure paintings, the figure is much harder to incorporate into the field of the sea. They are challenging in that they intrude onto the space. They demand attention, from the viewer. So I have kept away from portraiture as much as possible and use the figure as a symbol of the fisherman of the hero that he actually is.

There is an awesome feeling of space and time, away off shore. Nothing prepares you for it, not even the most experienced mariner.