b. 1978, Iowa. Lives and works Brooklyn, NY and Qatar.

For Mariah Dekkenga, painting is an extremely focussed act. Dekkenga works out the compositions of her paintings on the computer first. Then she moves to the studio, applying a thick impasto layer on canvas or burlap, and carefully constructing the composition on its surface. Dekkenga is concerned with eliminating any traces of her hand, meticulously blending the edges of colors, so that they bleed into each other. She likens the process to that of composing music, or meditating. The works come together slowly and by spending her time composing the image in the physical world, she processes the image differently than if she printed the work directly from the computer. Dekkenga hopes the viewer spends time really looking at the work, moving away from inventing ideas about how the painting was created. This directness and communication is clear in the way that she speaks about her work and her practice. Dekkenga’s paintings are part of a lineage of art history, communicating to people via the canvas.

To see more of Mariah Dekkenga's work, visit her website here http://www.mdekkenga.com

Images courtesy of the artist: