Michelle Concepción
Offenbach am Main
Puertorican American contemporary painter, known for her experimental, abstract paintings inspired by science and nature.
MessageMichelle Concepción is a contemporary artist, known for her abstract paintings and drawings inspired by science and discovery as well as the parallels found in nature and the physical world. Her work is the result of research, exploration, and experimentation, always pushing the boundaries of the materials she works with.
More a science lab than an artist’s studio, it is here, surrounded by syringes, tape, tweezers, and droppers where she spends anywhere from a couple of months to several years to complete a work. It is an exercise in discovery, adding and subtracting layers of paint, exploring patterns, shapes, and colors, that weave in and out of one another.
Statement
I have always felt intrigued by natural forms and the beauty and mystery of the mechanisms of life, both at a macro and microscopic level. Science and discovery have also seduced me: what we can and cannot see, the tangible and intangible, the movements and synapses, the particles and the supersymmetry between forces and matter, and the subtle tension it creates.
As in nature itself, my pieces explore the ephemeral, creation and destruction, beauty and mystery, motion and stillness, simplicity and complexity, chaos and order. Elements are repeated, covered up but not completely immersed into the background. Lines and drips are integrated into the composition as well as washes and transparencies - delicate enough to allow the layer beneath it to shimmer through, yet opaque enough to slightly disguise what lies underneath.
Over the years, my workspace feels more like a laboratory than an artist studio. It is here, surrounded by syringes, tape, tweezers, droppers, wooden sticks, Q-tips, glass, and metal objects, where I become an alchemist who works, investigates, experiments, tests, plays, discovers, and spends anywhere from several months to years to complete each piece. By observing and experimenting completely unexpected things happen. This is what guides and inspires me; it is this experience that I try to transmit to the viewer.
My work is the result of investigation, exploration, and experimentation. Each painting is a link to the next, a step into a metamorphosis, into a life-long method of examination. It is an exercise in discovery, played by adding and subtracting, by erasing and going back and forth with patterns, shapes and colors, that weave in and out of one another. A momentary glimpse into something, which is mysteriously transforming into something else. They surface and disappear creating compositions that are harmonious, yet show a certain strain between the forms. Nothing stands still. Everything seems to evolve. This very open-ended state of transformation is what invites the viewer to join me in the process of discovery. Together we connect with the science and art behind the human attempt to represent and reveal more about the world and its mysterious beauty.
https://www.michelleconcepcion.com/