Northeastern University’s Gallery 360 is always seen exhibiting excellent masterpieces from many of the artists around. Recently, it housed eight of her ethereal works from the artist Mikki Shectman. All of them were abstract, done marvellously in vibrant shades, indicating, as she claims, the ‘romance of nature’.
“I’m really so grateful to Northeastern,” Shectman said. “It is wonderful to be recognised.”
Shectman unveiled this exhibit at the Gallery 360, which remained there for four months. She named this collection “Art as an ‘Inside Job’”. The name is quite intriguing, to which Shectman narrated a story behind the inspiration. When she was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, her instructor asked the class a deceptively simple question of ‘Where does the light come from?’. The question could’ve had many answers, but Shectman replied to it by saying ‘The light is in my head’. The answer not only impressed her instructor but gave a whole new dimension to her works.
She has been painting over 50 years now, her works including portraits, narratives, and still life. She claims her inspiration to be a whole plethora of topics, right from religion and nature to even jazz music. Shectman thinks of herself as a ‘natural colourist’, a term used to describe a person who can blend the colours easily and efficiently and make them coexist properly on the canvas.
It was in the year 1993 that Shectman was included in the Archives for Women Artists, displayed in the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington. It is also just one more testimony of her artistic abilities. Throughout her entire career, her pillar of strength is her family, but more importantly, her daughter, Lizanne. She was actually the one for making this Northeastern exhibit possible, helping Shectman in her own way.
“I’ve always known my mother was a good artist,” she said. “She needs to be seen. She’s a hidden treasure.”
Pranjali Wakde
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