Though she is still a student, Soey Milk’s name has been on the lips of many in the art world as the young artist’s work continues to appear in galleries and art fairs — from the recent exhibition, “Supersonic Electronic Invitational,” at Spoke Art to Corey Helford Gallery’s booth at Scope Miami Beach during the most recent Miami Basel Week. This early foray into the gallery world hasn’t stopped Milk from experimenting with her style. When Hi-Fructose visited the artist in her quiet Hollywood studio last weekend, she discussed her new interest in textiles from all over the world — a fascination that has made its way into the colorful, abstract drapery in her latest paintings.
While Milk has a penchant for photorealist precision, she became disillusioned with perfectionism when a painting arrived back to her in the mail completely damaged, with a dirty foot print over the delicately-painted face over which she had labored. This moment was a wake-up call: Milk began to free her hands, allowing them to make looser paint strokes and etchings with the other side of the brush. Her current work maintains a sense of realism in the carefree, female figures’ faces and bodies, but these muses appear to float away in the imaginary cloudscapes of tapestry-like colors. I documented Milk’s works-in-progress that will appear at Thinkspace’s booth at Scope New York in March and “Pow! Wow!: Exploring the New Contemporary Art Movement” at the Honolulu Museum Of Art School, February 8-15. Take some photos from our visit below.
Work in progress
Detail
Preliminary drawing
Work in progress
Preliminary drawing
