Mimi...

...her name inspired though Puccini's opera La Boheme, she came to Chicago from Michigan shortly after receiving her degree. She moved to Chicago to work in the film industry and to pursue a career in art.

Mimi worked for major TV stations n Chicago before entering the package design industry during which time she continued to study painting in the U.S. and in Europe.

She has designed major international packaging and global identity programs for corporate giants such as Kraft and Quaker Oats and has taught fine art design at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Mimi studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Beaux-arts in Paris and the Royal Academy in London.

Mimi began her career with soft pastel and oil pastel, one of the oldest mediums used by Western artists and Eastern artists. She then explored and worked with other mediums including oil paint and acrylic.

Direct experience and the pastel paintings of Degas led her to realize that pastel had for her what no other medium could: direct contact, immediacy, and most importantly, spiritual purity. According to Mimi, "the spiritual purity, which Degas also spoke of, can capture and express with such clarity and color the internal light of the soul. And, it is through that light that painting takes on a new perspective and partnership in its relationship to all other sources of light."

Mimi paints exclusively on location, outdoors, from natural sunlight, natural sounds and natural energies. She paints in Chicago and other international cities. The pastel paintings are her attempt to capture the historical, spiritual and symbolic essence of sites and landmarks that affect our everyday lives and lives of our communities.

Mimi
Chicago, 2000