ARTIST STATEMENT
The themes in my work are inspired by everything around me. My paintings and prints reflect and interpret my emotions, my experiences, and my beliefs. We as humans experience so many things that affect our lives and I try to express this in my pictures. In my work I wanted to show that sometimes we must stay still, sometimes we are destructive and angry but always sustaining life. The last few years have been incredibly trying but like water sustains us, I must sustain life, my children depend on me daily to care for them and lead them through life. Always trying to finish this unfinished work that is life. I use different mediums to recreate my pictures, such as acrylic on canvas and while I still love this medium, I have fallen in love with the Linocut printmaking process. For these pieces, I used Kuretake Japanese Watercolors, I love their Gouache like vibrancy. Expressing myself through my art helps me deal with my disability by pouring my pain into my work. This helps me take my mind off my illnesses and the chaos that they create in my life.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Mildred Annani Mercado started painting with an old box of oil pastels that her father was going to throw out when she was 14 years old; she asked if she could have them and couldn’t stop. She is Puerto Rican and was born and raised on the south side of Chicago where she lives with her family. Annani is a mixed media Artist, Beekeeper, spoken word Poet, and was a Chef for 26 years. After 12 years of misdiagnoses, she was properly diagnosed in 2018 with Fibromyalgia and Crohn’s Disease. She took a step away from her art for a little more than 10 years. She decided to go back to school and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. During this time, she also began backyard beekeeping and creating art, realizing that like food for the body, she needed art to feed her soul!
Expressing herself through her art, art helped Annani deal with her disability, taking her mind her illnesses and the chaos they have created in her life. She believes in showing her children that there are healthier ways to deal with mental health issues. Inspired by everything around her, her art reflects her experiences, emotions, and beliefs and how she interprets them. The themes in her artwork deal with life, our burdens and how we carry them. She works with acrylics, gouache, oil pastels Kuretake Japanese Watercolors and has recently fallen in love with the Linocut printmaking process and how distinctively raw each individual print comes out.
© Mildred Annani Mercado