Dueling Figureheads
By Mimi Pinheiro
Limited Edition Risograph Prints, Digital Collage of New Bedford’s Orpheum Theatre, Whaling Museum and Glass Museum
(unframed)
11” 17”
2024
Artist Bio: Mimi is an Azorean-American artist working across painting, performance, and sculpture. Her unusual family history—of whalers, volcanic displacement, ballroom dancers and growing up in an Azorean-American community—influences much of her work. Her practice involves reviving traditional techniques through humor; and favors immediacy, improvisation, and play. Mimi embarked on a two-year apprenticeship with Mexican painter José “Pepe” Barbosa of the collective Grupo Suma in Mexico City, after falling in love with a painting from one of his former students. She lived and worked in a borough of Mexico City for five influential years, surrounded by students of Gilberto Aceves Navarro and Grupo Suma.
Mimi continues her practice between New England and New Orleans, where she focuses on figure drawing, still life, and material-based experimentation. Many of her pigments are handmade using traditional techniques and ingredients such as eggs, honey, and minerals. Her most prevalent red is pigmented with Grana Cochinilla—a beetle that lives on the Nopal cactus and has been used since the 2nd century BCE for its prized crimson tone. She is also interested in decorative arts, folk arts, and traditional techniques. She dances the line between tradition and play- experimenting with materials from sugar to plaster. Her work is driven by absurdism, the grotesque, and elaborate parties. Mimi has exhibited in art fairs, galleries and museums from Berlin to Los Angeles to Mexico City.
Dueling Figureheads
By Mimi Pinheiro
Limited Edition Risograph Prints, Digital Collage of New Bedford’s Orpheum Theatre, Whaling Museum and Glass Museum
(unframed)
11” 17”
2024
Artist Bio: Mimi is an Azorean-American artist working across painting, performance, and sculpture. Her unusual family history—of whalers, volcanic displacement, ballroom dancers and growing up in an Azorean-American community—influences much of her work. Her practice involves reviving traditional techniques through humor; and favors immediacy, improvisation, and play. Mimi embarked on a two-year apprenticeship with Mexican painter José “Pepe” Barbosa of the collective Grupo Suma in Mexico City, after falling in love with a painting from one of his former students. She lived and worked in a borough of Mexico City for five influential years, surrounded by students of Gilberto Aceves Navarro and Grupo Suma.
Mimi continues her practice between New England and New Orleans, where she focuses on figure drawing, still life, and material-based experimentation. Many of her pigments are handmade using traditional techniques and ingredients such as eggs, honey, and minerals. Her most prevalent red is pigmented with Grana Cochinilla—a beetle that lives on the Nopal cactus and has been used since the 2nd century BCE for its prized crimson tone. She is also interested in decorative arts, folk arts, and traditional techniques. She dances the line between tradition and play- experimenting with materials from sugar to plaster. Her work is driven by absurdism, the grotesque, and elaborate parties. Mimi has exhibited in art fairs, galleries and museums from Berlin to Los Angeles to Mexico City.
