Podcast appearances and mentions of michi meko

Recorded at the Art Papers Fire Ecology Symposium, Atlanta Atlanta artist Michi Meko joins Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews during Art Papers' symposium weekend for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from southern port cities and landscape painting to pandemic solitude, mental health, and the strange spiritual work of making art. Meko discusses his exhibition So Black and So Blue, a body of work developed between New Orleans and Savannah that reflects on color, history, and the charged atmosphere of southern coastal landscapes. Working with shimmering surfaces, deep blues, blacks, and gilded frames, the paintings operate between abstraction and landscape. They draw viewers into spaces that feel both cosmic and terrestrial, somewhere between daybreak and nightfall. The works are designed to be experienced in person, where layers of marks, reflective materials, and shifting color create movement and depth impossible to capture in photographs. The conversation expands into the tension between hard-edge abstraction and expressive mark-making. Meko describes his earlier work using nautical signal flags as coded language about survival and buoyancy in America, while also poking at the seriousness of modernist abstraction. From there, the group debates the emotional power of painting, touching on artists like Mark Rothko and Ellsworth Kelly, asking what makes a work spiritually or emotionally resonant and why some paintings leave viewers cold. A major turning point in Meko's practice came during the COVID-19 shutdown. When Atlanta closed down, he packed his car with camping gear and disappeared into the mountains, spending long stretches alone hiking, fishing, and writing. The period became a personal reckoning. He stopped painting entirely, turned inward, and began confronting anxieties and habits that had previously gone unexamined. Through solitude and outdoor wandering, he reframed landscape not as scenery but as a metaphor for the inner terrain of the mind. When Meko eventually returned to the studio, that experience reshaped his work. The paintings that emerged began to reflect internal states rather than external views. Horizons divide mind and body. Shimmering skies become metaphors for thought and anxiety. Dense fields of mark-making hold viewers inside the work, drawing them in and out of the image in a restless visual rhythm. Throughout the conversation, Meko reflects on the strange transformation that can occur through isolation, describing the experience of leaving society and returning "a little feral, a little monk-like," carrying new perspectives about art, masculinity, therapy, and the ways people search for healing. What emerges is a portrait of an artist navigating between wilderness and studio, darkness and wonder, abstraction and landscape. For Meko, painting becomes both exploration and survival, a way of mapping the landscapes inside ourselves. Name Drop List (Bad at Sports style) Michi Meko - https://www.michimeko.com Art Papers - https://www.artpapers.org/ Duncan MacKenzie - https://kurasmackenzie.com/ Brian Andrews - https://www.brianandrews.org/ Louis Armstrong - https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org Mark Rothko - https://www.markrothko.org Rothko Chapel - https://www.rothkochapel.org Ellsworth Kelly - https://ellsworthkelly.org Bob Ross - https://www.bobross.com J. M. W. Turner - https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jmw-turner-558 Thomas Cole - https://thomascole.org The Goat Farm Arts Center - https://goatfarmartscenter.com New Orleans Savannah Gulf of Mexico

Jodi Hays (b. 1976) is a Nashville-based artist whose work explores the material vocabulary of the American South through reclaimed and repurposed cardboard, textiles, and fabrics that resemble screen doors, old boards, and sign paintings. She is a 2019 Finalist for the Hopper Prize. Her work has been seen most recently in a solo exhibition at Night Gallery, Los Angeles. Jodi Hays and Michi Meko come together in The Burden of Wait to present a selection of works rooted in their shared focus, the Southern landscape. Hays employs reclaimed cardboard, dyed fabrics, and other quotidian materials to explore the visual lexicon of the American South. She describes her practice as “a southern povera,” calling upon the use of unconventional and humble materials. Hays' work is further inspired by the material habits of Robert Rauschenberg and the rituals and repetitions of Beverly Buchanan. Through her deliberate use of found material, the artist visualizes the resourceful labor of women in the South as those that make, stack, sew, mend, and fix. JODI HAYS Meridian, 2022 Dye, paper, ribbon and cardboard collage on panel 24 x 30 in. (JHY0006) Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC. JODI HAYS May/December , 2022 Dye, and cardboard collage on wood strainer 45 x 46 in. (JHY0007) Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC. JODI HAYS Cotton, 2022 Dye, paper, and cardboard collage 71 x 56 in. (JHY0005) Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC.

Mia Anika is a visual artist, cartographer, and mental health advocate based in Atlanta, Georgia. She earned her Bachelor of Art in Visual Arts from Agnes Scott College in 2014.   Her work centers around discovering and exploring inner worlds, the intersections of color theory and mindfulness, drawing inspiration from Julie Mehretu, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Michi Meko, Radcliffe Bailey and Sam Gilliam.    She advocates for holistic approaches to mental health and wellness and invites others to facilitate their healing by participating in the creative process, through journaling and workshops. She recently led a workshop at the 2019 Yale Black Solidarity Conference on fine arts and resilience. Her work has appeared at Decatur Arts Alliance, HOBI Studios, TILA Studios, and currently at Art of Touch Massage & Health Center in Midtown Atlanta. Art Heals the Broken!    You can follow along with Mia on her Website and Instagram.

Join Tyler as he talks with Michi Meko about how his life as an artist has been shaped how he made his way into the industry. Listen to the end to find where the title of this episode came from!

Michi Meko talks about how artists Nipsey Hussle, Alice Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix are of interest to him right now, developing artistic language around trauma and history, and how he creates space for home (Alabama) in his life and work. IN SPACE is a collection of conversations with Atlanta-based artists, curators, creators, makers, leaders and educators. Each of these conversations was produced in the open space confines of Atlanta Contemporary, providing an opportunity to allow the activity, energy and sounds of the art center to add to the context of the dialogue. Special thanks to the Atlanta Contemporary leadership and staff in supporting this project.

Joe and Matthew discuss the work of Lonnie Holley and recent guests Justin Rabideau and Michi Meko. Trends in art making and distribution are examined within the framework of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, David Salle’s How To See, and selected criticism: No Paintings for Old Men: I’m Done with Amy Feldman (Art F City) […] The post To Your Earlier Point . . . | Episode 14 appeared first on Brain Fuzz.

Joe and Matthew join Michi Meko at his studio as he prepares for not one, but two exhibitions in the same week. The creative struggle and permanence versus impermanence in art are discussed. Sun Ra however is the catalyst for this gathering. And Sun Ra leads to an examination of Afrofuturism, altered destiny, jazz, and […] The post The Ultimate Game of Chess with Michi Meko | Episode 12 appeared first on Brain Fuzz.

We speak with artist Michi Meko and art academic Kristin Jaurez about what public art means and what it means in Atlanta.  "The job of resurrectors is to wake up the dead" - Michi Meko