Mimi Mikhailov- Screaming, ‘turn it off.’

I started this piece at a time of deep stress where I felt the easiest way to deal with my life was to compartmentalize myself, my actions, and my identity. But this state of shattered self only compounded my stress and made my life feel unsatisfying, and myself incompetent. A compartmentalized self is to me like leading a life in black and white; easy, seemingly, to distinguish wrong from right, good from bad, but lacking in the nuance and beauty that considering human beings as complicated and whole, however difficult, has. Learning to work with a new and unconventional material (CDs), as well as relearning a tried and true classic (acrylic), forced me to come to peace with inconsistency in my art and my world; subtle chaos like a thumbprint in gesso and fracture lines in a CDs, and blissful perfection like a clean line and a clean cut; paint left on the creases of my thrifted jeans, a perfect score on my most recent math test.