There are many levels of meaning to an artist's work and there are many reasons why an artist makes art. There are also artists, works of art and creative endeavors, which have no evident meaning and that does not make them any less valuable or less essential. The act of painting and creating is something that is in my nature. Mikel is happiest when he is doing it. When he is in the creative “zone” time seems to stand still. It may be the only time that he is truly in the moment, the present moment. Like the Dadaists and Abstract Expressionists, his work is mostly about spontaneity and automatism. He does not plan or do sketches before he starts making a picture. It is a dialogue; emotionally and intellectually responsive. He makes a mark or glues down an image or shape, then responds to it and makes another mark that helps support the creation of the overall work. It is like call and response or musical improvisation. It is important to realize, however, that he is constantly using his knowledge of the elements, principles and vocabulary of art and design: line, shape, form, color, value, space, etc. are essential to how he constructs his work. Some of his pieces are done with a medium known as encaustic. he embeds images into a layer of molten wax to create a kind of narrative using various mixed media. At times he goes purely abstract using non-objective forms and shapes to create a picture based on his own personal sense of where things should be compositionally and aesthetically. Other times he creates a narrative arranging found images from different sources juxtaposing them to create a psychological allusion or suggestive symbolism or metaphor.
Mikel Frank is a creative! He has been an artist since he was 16 years old, but he did not think so seriously until he was in college and transferred out his second year of a liberal arts school to a full-on fine art program at Maryland Institute College of Art. He thinks considering himself an artist was a matter of confidence in the fact that he was good enough. Once he had the confidence, he could make some art that was truly what he wanted to visually express. As an artist, he wants to communicate that visual information in an informed way with an eye toward giving viewers an experience that may provide understanding and insight into, not only the process of art making, but the visual impact that his work may have.
