artists register

Vicky Micklem

In Tune

In Tune

The main elements were paper cast.

Original
Mixed Media
90cm x 90cm

Statement

As an artist, I am interested in alternative ways of seeing, pushing the boundaries of form and in playing with the idea of fluxes of energy. My paintings try to capture the transformative power of light, the boundless dimension of free spirit transposed onto a form or a landscape and the emotive content of symbols we sometimes take for granted.   

At present I am working on a theme dedicated to the New Earth and her Children. My interests evolve round ancient art, mythological symbols and their timeless quality and how it all relates to the new sense of consciousness emerging. Also I am interested in portrayal of psychological personas of male and female, and their relationship  with the Earth.  

As an Energy Therapist I've become increasingly interested in seeing my body as a conduit of energies manifested in nature. As a painter I've been trying to invent pictorial metaphoric representations of some of those energy forces I connect with.To this I dedicated the paintings Manifestation (Oak) and Being with You (Silver Birch). 

Having also worked in fibre sculpture, I like the tactile quality of woven surfaces, the linear, the lattice-like textures of open-ended compositions, which sometimes emerge in my paintings. My relief work is perhaps the most experimental of my recent work, linking sculptural media with painting. It incorporates many different materials from cast paper, glass and sand dust to seeds, wax and wire. These creative collages are a play on various symbolic references.

 

 

 

Biography

I was born and raised in Poznan, Poland, in a culture where the Fine and Performing Arts were very much a refection of the people controlled by political and cultural circumstances. Those were the times of the state-own economy and censorship, where the arts were recognised as the means of stifled self-expression. I left Poland at the age of 19 with a resolve to become an artist. I had no formal art education at that stage, so putting myself through the art college and the university was a way of receiving much needed validation. Along with the honorary award, art grants and scholarships came tentative self-recognition. Many years later I found myself living in the rural England, sharing my passion for art with children and adults. At some point I came to the conclusion that, for the art to speak in the most authentic terms, it needs to reflect one's own way of being and living and to stay informed by the metaphysics of who we really are. This led to my interest in Bio-energetic therapies and spiritual practices. With time I became a practitioner in healing arts and my work has re-emerged as a result of my personal growth and spiritual development.

As a student I studied painting in the 80's at Alberta College of Art and Design, and continued with fibre sculpture. Working with the installational format with open wire structures had freed me from the pre-conception of what art should really look like. This way of feeling and being, informed my later work on canvas which I went back to exploring ten years later.

I started exhibiting in the late 80's in Canada - Calgary: The New Gallery, Walter Philips Gallery, Max Bell Theatre in Banff, and in Montreal in Complex Canal du Lachine and Bourget Gallery. In the early 90's I went back to Poland where I worked on new installation projects presented in Gdynia and Gdansk Galleries: Zak, The Gallery 78, Contemporary Gallery of Sculpture (Gdansk), Modern Museum (Gdansk), Contemporary Art Museum of Textiles in Lodz.

My paintings were presented in Poznan (Poland) 1995, Calgary (Canada) 1985-87 and in England over the last eight years at the Individual Exhibitions in conjunction with the Oxfordshire Arts Festival, Abingdon Arts Festival, in Banbury History Museum, among others and with Robert Moy Studio Gallery in Oxford.