Mimi Chen Ting

Born in Shanghai China, Mimi Chen Ting came to the United States to study Sociology and English Literature, quickly changed her focus to the visual arts. Since her first solo exhibition at the Lucien Labaudt Gallery in San Francisco in 1970, Ting's works have shown at museums, educational institutions, and galleries internationally, and are included in numerous corporate and private collections.

Figure, landscape, and biomorphic abstractions are the foundations of her art. She cites the influence of the 15th century Italian artist Piero della Francesca, whose paintings were characterized by a scientific perspective and systematic simplifications of natural forms. Ting says, "Some of my earliest awareness of aesthetics was through Buddhist temple scultures, Beijing opera style of music and performance, a culture that defines its fates through stark scripts and rituals as well as opulent decorations and ceremonies. These lessons were often hard to reconcile with my concept of expression. Somehow when I first saw Piero's works, I felt I understood that there was a way to absorb and filter it all. I learned to combine figuration and abstraction in the literal sense, how to describe time through the use of space."

Ting lives and works most of the year in the high deserts of the North American Southwest, and also maintains a studio beside the waters of the San Francisco Bay.

A child teaches me the art of counting: “One, one, one, one, one.....,” our noses pointing firmly toward infinity.

When I enter the studio, I am that child, capable of immeasurable possibilities. Whether I am painting, making prints, drawing, or performing, I thrill at the processes of making marks, and relish the meandering each medium proffers. Memory, observation, experience, and imagination are my beacons. Grounding my feet firmly in the tangible, my path is smoothest when I am willing to fall. Along the way, discoveries and resonance abound. I traverse a solitary journey where I simply cannot become lost, where every turn promises an adventure, and each step brings me closer toward home.

As Henry James said, “We work in the dark. We do what we can. We give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.” I count myself among the fortunate.

2004 Miniatures Millicent Rogers Museum, Toas, NM
2004 Rocky Mountain Biennial Museum of Contemporary Art. Fort Collins, CO
2003 Miniatures Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
2003 Fire in the Heart: The Creative Spirit Schneider Museum of Art, Southern Oregon University, OR
2003 Art of the Book in Book in the South West Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM
2002 Landscape and Memory Sedona Art Center Gallery, Sedona AZ
2002 Transformations dA Center for the Arts, Pomona, CA
2001 Shadow and Light South of Broadway Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM
2001 University of Colorado Contemporary Art Gallery, Colorado Springs, CO
2000 The Birth of Wisdom Chapelle Des Penitents Blanc, Gordes, France: St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM
2000 Monotypes College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM
1999 University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ
1997 Multicultural Exhibit Synopsys Incorporated, Network General Corporation, CA
1997 Modernists Stables Art Gallery, Taos, NM
1997 Impressionism to Abstraction Dearing Galleries, Taos, NM
1996 Moore Art II Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts, Saratoga, CA
1994 Layered Perspective Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR.
1994 Women and the Body Works Gallery, San Jose, CA
1994 Fuller Lodge Art Center, Los Alamos, NM
1994 Gathering Medicine Art In General, New York, NY
1994 The Exhibitioner Sea Cliff Gallery, Sea Cliff, NY
1994 Ancestors Known & Unknown Roswell Museum, Roswell, NM;
Hearst Center for the Arts, Cedar Falls. Iowa; Georgia State University Art Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia
1993 Power and Grace St. Supery, Rutherford, C
1993 Layering Dartmouth Street Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
1993 Syntex Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
1993 Box Project Salina Art Center, Salina, Kansas; Lowe Art Museum, U of Miami, FL.;
Delaware State College Gallery, Dover, DE, Bruce R. Watkins Center, Kansas City MO
1993 Completing the Circle II Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
1992 Collection 54 San Jose Museum of Art, CA., Invitational.
1992 Box Project: Ancestors Women & Their Work, Austin, TX
1992 Images, Visions, & Voices Seipp Gallery, Palo Alto, CA.
1992 Internal Visions San Jose Art League, CA
1992 Gathering Lite Rail Gallery, Sacramento, CA
1992 Different Voices U.C. Santa Barbara Women's Center, CA
1992 A Woman’s Vision SFWA/SOMAR Galleries, SF, CA
1991 Voyage into Abstraction Chaminade Center, Santa Cruz, CA
1991 Spirits of East and West Berkeley Store Gallery, Berkeley, CA.
1991 Art First De Novo Gallery, Palo Alto, CA.
1991 Border to Border Austin Peay State University Trahern Gallery, TN
1991 Positive/Negative VII E. Tennessee State U. Slocumb Galleries, TN
1991 Drawing from Life Juniper Gallery, Napa, CA
1990 Drawings The Fenix Gallery, Taos, NM
1990 6 Artist Completing the Circle Southern Exposure Gallery, SF, CA
1990 Complex Lives: Multiple Visions Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts, CA
1990 Box Project Art in General, New York, NY; Kean College, NJ; Islip Art Museum, NY
Barnes; Blackman Gallery & Firehouse Gallery, Houston, TX; The Wooster College Museum, OH
1990 Womankind Gavilan College Gallery, Gilroy, CA
1989 ART/LA 89 Simon James Gallery/Magnolia Editions, Los Angeles, CA.
1989 Swimmers and Other Bodies of Water Simon James Gallery, Berkeley, CA
1988 A World Without War State Capital Bldg., Sacramento, CA.; American School Fine Arts, Singapore;
The American Embassy, Malaysia; Art Forum, Singapore, Manukau City Gallery, New Zealand
1988 Imprint San Jose Art League, CA
1988 Small Print Exhibition Citadel Print Center, San Jose, CA.
1987 Contemporary Voices Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
1987 75th Anniversary Exhibition San Jose Museum of Art, CA.
1986 The Purest Pigment - Pastel The Art Corridor, Menlo Park, CA
1986 Pastels and Watercolor S.F. Women Artists Gallery, CA
1985 Montypes A to Z San Jose City College Gallery, CA
1985 The Oback Influence - A Tribute San Jose State University Gallery, CA
1981 Masques Invitational S J Institute of Contemporary Art
1980 Experimental Lithography S J State University Art Gallery
1980 Handmade Papers Performance Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
1977 Six Senses Sun Gallery, Hayward, CA
1977 Third World Artists Helen Euphrat Gallery, Cupertino, CA
1976 Six Senses Sunnyvale Creative Arts Center, CA
1973 KQED Select Exhibit Crown Zellerbach Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1971 Lodi Art Festival (2nd prize painting), Lodi, CA
1971 California State Fair Fine Art Exhibit Sacramento, CA
1968 Hancock Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA

Mimi Chen Ting Shows New Work at Café Loka Art Space

To observe the waning of winter, and celebrate the returning of longer and warmer days, Mimi Chen Ting presents “Confetti”, a series of new paintings at the beautiful art space at Café Loka, a popular cultural and community hub accessible through the courtyard at the top of Ledoux Street. The address is 112-E Camino de la Placita, Taos, New Mexico 87571. These and other works will be on view from February 4 to March 15, 2008, 8 to 5 Mondays through Saturdays, closed on Sundays. There will be a reception on Saturday, February 9, 3-5 at Café Loka. The public is invited to come meet the artist

When the UPS truck dropped off a mangled container, Ting knew she was in trouble. The core of the canvas roll had been broken. Instead of the stretches of virgin canvas on which she paints directly tacked to her studio walls, she owns 60 feet of badly wrinkled and cracked material she hates to throw out. Thereby begins a series of small (to the artist) vibrant paintings, inspired by the changing contours of our landscape due to global warming. Ting entitles this ongoing series “Confetti” because these are indeed the smallest (again, this is all relative) and most colorful canvases she has produced, a challenge to her twin talents of fragmentation and distillation.

Signe Mayfield of the Art Corridor described Ting’s abstract paintings as “a special brilliance, luminosity, velvety matt texture, and magical presence”. Her works are widely shown in a variety of venues, including museums, galleries, both nationally and abroad, most recently at the Albuquerque Museum Biennial Southwest, and are found in numerous public, corporate and private collections, including those of AT & T, Advance Micro Device, Xerox Corporation, Kaiser Permanente, the University of Phoenix, Stanford University Hospital, the Harwood Museum and the Miniature Museum of Contemporary Art. Another series “Tangles and Ties”, which she has been working on for the last three years, will be featured in a one-person exhibition with the same name in Hong Kong at the Art Beatus Gallery in October 2008.

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For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact the artist, Mimi Chen Ting at or 575-758-0994

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2008 Art Beatus, Hong Kong, China. Curated by Richard Yiu
2008 LOKA Art Space, Taos, NM. Curated by David Hardy
2007 D’Adamo/Woltz Gallery, Seattle, WA. Curated by Susan Woltz.
2005 “3 Paintings” The Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM. Curated by David Witt.
2005 “Time Tracks” Thomson Hall Gallery, Sausalito, CA. Curated by Louise Forbush.
2005 Belvedere-Tiburon Public Library, Tiburon, CA
1999 Quantum Corporation Galleries, Milpitas, CA
1997 Maude Kerne Art Center, Eugene, OR
1995 "Art for the Wall" Los Gatos Fine Arts Commission, Los Gatos, CA. Curated by Ann Lamborn.
1994 “New Works” d.p. Fong Galleries, San Jose, CA. Curated by Jane Salvin.
1993 “New Works” Taos Fine Art Gallery, Taos, NM. Curated by Suzanne Perna.
1992 “New Works” Twin Cranes Gallery, Seattle, WA. Curated by Geraldine H. Murray.
1992 "Paintings and Prints" Oakland Museum Collectors Gallery, Oakland, CA. Curated by Viveien Fischback.
1992 "Of Fact and Fiction" The University of Arizona Rotunda Gallery, Tucson, AZ. Curated by Karen Erickson.
1992 "Beyond Figuration" Merced College Art Gallery, Merced, CA. Curated by Leslie Frazier.
1991 "Monotypes and Paintings" Stanford University Center for Integrated Studies, Palo Alto, CA;
Curated by Priscilla Hexter
1991 "Recent works" Santa Clara County Arts Council, San Jose, CA. Curated by Eugenia Haney.
1990 "Just Pictures" Rosicrucian Museum Contemporary Gallery, San Jose, CA. Curated by Susan Wageman.
1988 "Paper Works" Mission College Gallery, Santa Clara, CA. Curated by George Rivera.
1988 "Monotypes" Allegra Gallery, San Jose, CA. Curated by Russell Moore.
1987 "Works on Paper" Asian Resource Gallery, Oakland, CA
1986 "Monotypes" Oakland Museum Collectors Gallery, Oakland, CA. Curated by Vivien Fischback.
1979 "Jujube Waves and Related Matters" California State University, San Jose Gallery, San Jose, CA
1970 Lucien Labaudt Gallery, San Francisco, CA

SOLO PERFORMANCES
2007 “Taking Measure/Gathering Time” The Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, Albuquerque, NM
2005 “Tender Tides” Taos Center for the Arts and the Harwood Museum, Taos, NM
2005 “Ghosts Revisited” Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM
2004 “Riding the Hogwarts Express and Other Works” Harwood Museum, Taos, NM
2003 “How to Make a Book and Eat It Too”, Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM
2000 “Life Journal”, San Geronimo Center, Taos, NM
1989 "Sliding by", San Jose City College, San Jose, CA
1985 "Work in Progress", Upstairs at Eulipia, San Jose, CA
1984 "Moving in", Works Gallery, San Jose, CA
1983 "Separations: Ghosts". San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
1981 "Ghosts", Works Gallery, San Jose, CA
1981 "You Can Still Hear Crickets", San Jose City College Theater, San Jose,CA
1981 "Shadow Walk", San Jose City College, CA
1980 "Last Gathering", The Artery, San Francisco, CA
1980 "An Afternoon at the Zoo", San Jose State University Art Gallery, San Jose, CA