Mikie Survant


	Mikie Survant Lansing, Michigan
		Listen to this artist. (AU 80K)
		E-mail this artist at survant@wmich.edu.

The most difficult part of being an artist is having to write or talk about my own art. I draw on the thoughts of others to help give me insight into what they see and then maneuver those thoughts through my reasoning and creative response system to determine which ideas agree with the images and the thoughts I am trying to process in my photographs.

My work has been described as Neo-Formalist. On a simple level Formalism could be described as adhering to a set of traditional formulas in subject treatment and image acquisition. The portrait is often done in a formal, traditional manner using formulas of subject placement and hand position and the taking, processing, and tonal quality of the final photograph.

I have tried to reach beyond the boundaries of "isms" and yet incorporate some of them, to a degree, in my images. The multiple images of myself, the manipulation of colors and tones, inverting the image as to be a negative instead of positive, varying the position of subject in the image (upside down, sideways on the wall, and so forth) all break rules. Repetitive fragmentation in my work directly reflects the way my life has been in the last few years. Of course, fragmentation and appropriation are also hallmarks of what has come to be called the post-modern. Toward this end I have also begun to incorporate words and language with my visual images.

To call my work Neo-Formalist is appropriate since "neo" means beyond and they reach beyond the typical treatment of the portrait and through the use of the text they approach the post-modern narrative. The title is from a poem by John Oxenham; check the sound bite if you would like to hear the full poem.