The paintings of Mimi Chen Ting sum up her emotions towards the natural mishaps and political events that emerge in the world around her. The works help her bear witness to significant occurrences which are beyond her control.

While emotional feelings and responses are intangible and intricate to encapsulate on canvases, harnessing them and materializing them aesthetically have become Mimi’s quest for life.

In her artist’s statement, Mimi says that her works usually begin with gestural drawings. After alternating layering of paint and charcoal, shapes and colours that bear resonance to her start to emerge. Parts that are superfluous will be either erased or hidden and the remaining lines and colours become the bedrock for expansion and deliberation. In her works, she enjoys nursing and teasing the shapes and colours, butting them and letting them pull and push each other into the adjacent spaces.

Mimi is also an accomplished dancer and it is not difficult for viewers of her works to detect the choreographic arrangement of the shapes and forms as well as the colourful rhythms of flow that are on her canvases.

Born in Shanghai, Mimi has resided and worked in the United States since 1965. She has a Master of Art degree from California State University and has served on the faculty at San Jose City College and University of California at Berkeley Extension Program.  Her works have been shown in museum and gallery exhibitions across the United States and in the US embassies in Malaysia and The Hague as well. Her paintings are in the collections of numerous private and public institutions.