How to burn a painting and write an artist statement in Iceland with Michele Kishita | Episode 54

Michele Kishita is a Philadelphia-based artist who uses colors found in nature that are not typically associated with “natural” colors and focuses on landscape as her primary subject. Her paintings are strongly influenced by the graphic stylizations and compressed spaces of Japanese ukiyo-e. Kishita’s paintings are in a number of private/corporate collections, including Toyota, Capital One, and Kaiser Permanente, and her work is featured in Create Magazine, on the Poetry Foundation blog, and Studio Break podcast, as well as in several literary journals. She exhibited at the Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates and the Museum of Non-Conformist Art in St. Petersburg, Russia. Kishita received both her BFA and MFA in painting from the University of the Arts. Was so great chatting with Michele Kishita, artist, writer and teacher about living in Japan and how that time has influenced her art, how her view of artist residencies has shifted and some of her resident highlights. She also discusses her experiences working with gallerist Bridgette Mayer and synchronicities that occurred that made it feel like the right choice to work with an art coach. She teaches writing and gives some great tips for cleaning up your artist statement and she has some great book recommendations and unconventional tips for gowing tomatoes. About her recent body of work: Absent Futures Absent Futures is a new body of work on shou sugi-ban (burnt timber) panels that addresses the current state of deforestation and the opposing concepts of resilience and devastation. While our forests and natural spaces continue receding due to industry and suburban sprawl, the more catastrophic losses are occurring in the rainforest where swaths the size of forty football fields disappear each minute. Suggestions of landscape painted onto the burnt surfaces depict a memory of what was while at the same time highlighting what remains and can still be salvaged. It is a reminder of the persistence and vitality of nature and our role in choosing its success or failure, which ultimately determines our own. Her work in general: “My current work investigates the dialogue between the wooden surfaces on which I paint and the trees from which those panels were built. I highlight the interconnectedness of humans and nature, while addressing life’s impermanence and transience. Industry's straight lines and angles try to control nature, transforming a tree’s rounded mass into flat rectangular sheets; yet, the wood grain’s undulations, marking the tree’s growth and annual water intake, emerge despite its new, boxy confines. A tree's experiences are indelibly written on its interior and at the same time are a historical account of the landscape itself. In my paintings, I strive to conjure the landscape that no longer exists but is inherently contained in each panel while expressing the visual contrast and harmony where human-made structures and nature intersect.” from www.michelekishita.com I also want to speak the name of Jacob Blake and send prayers to his family and loved ones. Yes we still need to disarm the police and restructure the law enforcement and justice system in this country. Oh and the medical and education systems could use an overhaul too. We have work to do. Please register to vote and please do whatever is in your power to vote. . So excited to share with you the conversation I had with Michele Kishita Links: www.michelekishita.com https://www.instagram.com/michelekishita/