I enjoyed drawing and painting from a very early age.  I remember preferring to draw pictures to color, using coloring books only as reference, and making hundreds of unique cartoon characters that my siblings and I would hang all over the walls. I completed my first realistic portrait when I was seven. When I was young, I would submit a drawing every year to the K-8th grade school yearbook; I was published in kindergarten, and won the cover with my artwork from 1st through 8th grade.

At this point in my life, I fell under the impression that I could never survive in life by being an artist, and decided to invest my time in the study of science and medicine instead. Unfortunately, it was at this point in my life that artistic endeavors would have been most beneficial, and the void left by their absence was the most detrimental.

During my junior year in college, (thanks to an artistic friend) I once again experimented in the realm of art and soon found myself addicted to the high of creative expression.  Knowing this is what had been missing in my life, art soon became my main priority, . I then set out in the pursuit to learn as much about as many forms of art as I possibly could, and found that over the next several years I had studied and learned about things that I would have never known existed, had my passion for art not  been re-ignited. I’ve found that I have always enjoyed two very different art movements: traditional realistic art like that of renaissance masters, and  the bold lines and bright colors that are prominent in tattoo and comic book art, illustration, and in general the lowbrow / pop surrealistic movement.  Both movements I had unknowingly incorporated into my artwork at a very early age, and continue to integrate in to my work today. Disappointingly, neither of these art forms are commonly appreciated in traditional fine art shows and galleries, and many times are purchased solely for the enjoyment of the consumer.  Accordingly, much of my art work on display has been commissioned, and therefore possesses a personalized significance specifically geared toward the customer-- because of this, my customers often value and treasure these commissioned pieces more than any other piece of artwork they own.

All of this resulted in the work you see on exhibit at pinkreclusestudios.com.  This work is said to have distinctiveness all its own, having been developed through non-conventional teaching methods, outside of a classroom or rigid curriculum, by pure creativity untouched by the restraints and limitations set by fine art critics. Please enjoy, and check back often for updates.

                                                Mimi Millmier McKinney