Micki High

YUGEN

A profound awareness of the universe that triggers feelings too deep and mysterious for words

My work is a response to subjects that are often more felt than named,
filtering out the need for illusion and representing the essence of a seen
image, pre-verbal. Tapping into unconscious memories, a halfway world,
leads to abstract shape, textures, colours, and marks in my art; this evokes
the impressions of the internal and external landscapes we have travelled.

My paintings are a study of the mystery that is our understanding and
experience of Nature, Nature that is bare and primal. Humans tend to
anthropomorphize Nature, to lay their fingerprints upon it, but I search for
its beginning. Texture, colour, layering, excavation, visual and physical
depth play a role in my storytelling and support my deeper exploration of
the natural world. I use a squeegee, palette knives, stencils, brayers,
monoprinting, bold shapes, gestural lines, incision, compressed textures,
and layers to achieve the intention of each piece I create.

I hope viewers see the rawness and a leave-taking of images that have
inspired the work; colour; vitality, intuition, and depth of expression define
my painting. Creative work that transports the viewer into other felt places
is deeply satisfying and celebrates the forces that are often hidden to our
eyes but intrinsically felt. By the time the painting is complete, much of my
energy has been transformed into the painting’s layers and marks, whether

revealed or obscured: they have stories to tell.

“Every canvas is a journey all its own” – Helen Frankenthaler