Mimi Silver

I was born a month late. Momma said I was comfortable in her womb. I was not ready for life. She was right. Understanding the place I come from culturally and spiritually has always been the dominant theme in my work.

Tennessee Williams described Southern Gothic as, “An intuition of an underlying dreadfulness in modern experience.” Nothing is more provocative, more esoteric to me than my own blood, and I am fascinated by the pejorative stereotyping of Southerners, particularly the tarnished veneer of aristocracy. I often wonder about our obsession with death, if days gone by existed at all.

My paintings exhibit anthropomorphic imagery of a deer being flayed by my brother. I objectify the grotesque with an ethereal elegance; the carcass is the vessel of the soul. Painting mediates my desire to transcend the carnal tragedy of mankind and supplies a temporary antidote to my existential anxiety. I have spent life searching for a seam in the flesh of reality and it has left me raw, like a piece of meat.