Lindsey Millikan
California-based artist Lindsey Millikan is a contemporary realist painter whose whose subject matter is secondary to the color relationships and composition. In recent years, her studio work as focused on emotional paintings of ocean waves on live edge wood slabs. Also, well-known for her large scale mural work that is throughout the Bay Area. She has murals everywhere from the famed 924 Gilman in Berkeley to main highway throughways in Oakland to a mural atop the Salesforce Transit Center for the Global Climate Action Conference in San Francisco. Lindsey Millikan is available for commercial and public murals as well as private residences. Concurrently, she is seeking gallery representation for her most recent body of work while actively participating in select group shows.
CURRENT STUDIO WORK: OCEAN SERIES
The emotional tides that are universal to the human experience are explored in this body of work. Through a decidedly contemporary realism approach, oil and acrylic paint are boldly applied to thoughtfully chosen live edge wood slabs of locally sourced redwood, walnut and pine in order to express internal abstract concepts. Each cresting wave, bubbling pool and fleck of sea foam are the visceral evidence on the surface of the pull of the undertow that unifies us all. Although no longer seen, the wood grain that indicates the life once lived spanning decades in a forest now informs the movement of the water and is felt through the turn of the tide illustrated on the surface of the substrate. The bark that once protected the precious core of the tree is now an outline that accentuates a wave curling, breaking and frozen in time. This snapshot of movement highlights the tale as old as time: the universal truth through specific experience.
MURAL WORK
The artist began her mural practice in the Bay Area since 2010. Her approach to public art has always been to focus on the community that the public art will serve. Does the work suit the environment? Does it engage with the public? And if so, what message does it convey? Public murals are most effective when they reflect the community’s history, current youth that are being shaped by the community, fellow citizens within the community and the community’s responsibility to the environment.
