MICHI MEKO — Michi Meko

“Michi Meko is a unique artist, whose works are somewhere on the border between graffiti and contemporary art. He is all South, and his works breathe it.

The result is simply stunning: extremely lively, extremely vibrant and deep, they are large, not only in dimensions but in their meaning. You can literally get lost in them, guessing and wondering where one layer ends and the other begins.

Multilayered, multicolored, multifaceted, these paintings are a contemporary puzzle, luring the audience into a world of many twists, turns and faces, places and lines, — they are unique, and unique in many senses. Meko is an artist and a keen psychologist, that’s what makes his paintings surprisingly real and always up to the point. - Kudago Revan Inc.

His fascination with the relationship between physical and psychological is palpable in his work that blends clear, straightforward images with amorphous scribbling and other shapes. In a way, it kinda makes perfect sense Meko funded his Atlanta move with winnings from a gambling match with a flagrant Alabaman gangster. It’s his mysterious familiarity that draws you in.
— Beca Grimm

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Powerful exhibit showcases Southern artist with complex take on race

This visually rich show is a mix of assemblage sculptures and paintings, as well as works on paper whose worked-over palimpsests of color and line convey a strong sense of the past. Their weathered, degraded appearance is one way Meko gets at his mission in “Pursuit”: to examine an emotional continuum of the African-American experience and show how a smart, urban black man who lives in the present also contends with the past’s legacy.

ART PAPERS MAGAZINECast Iron Michi Meko An artist almost drowns, then reflects on Black Buoyancy, Hemingway, and Mami Wata — ART PAPERS MAGAZINE
Cast Iron
Michi Meko
An artist almost drowns, then reflects on Black Buoyancy, Hemingway, and Mami Wata

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Michi Meko’s nautically themed “Pursuit” an ambitious high water mark...

The exhibition is a high-wire, ambitious effort to find the sweet spot between buoyancy and immersion; between sinking and swimming; and between the deeply personal and the universal. This visually strong narrative, cloaked in layers of meaning, offers a rich experience for the persistent viewer.

Michi Meko’s installation, Studying the Silences: we used to eat this back home (2017), explores this through a whole series of stunning visual metaphors for the complex process by which an African-American heritage has to be rediscovered through li… — Michi Meko’s installation, Studying the Silences: we used to eat this back home (2017), explores this through a whole series of stunning visual metaphors for the complex process by which an African-American heritage has to be rediscovered through lines of descent and preserved by honoring the ancestral lineage through which it came.

Reflections in the DeepOnce caught in Meko’s formal qualities, the significance of the artworks becomes apparent. Meko’s use of symbols requires interaction from the viewer. And once involved, the viewer is fortunate to encounter an inspiring perspe… — Reflections in the Deep
Once caught in Meko’s formal qualities, the significance of the artworks becomes apparent. Meko’s use of symbols requires interaction from the viewer. And once involved, the viewer is fortunate to encounter an inspiring perspective. In November Charlie, a male body seems to be almost submerged by blackness, but his head is just above the abyss. This work suggests his perspective on the numerous offenses against black men that have caused demonstrations and uprisings across the country in the past couple of years.

Building upon a series of recent works inspired by the history of navigation, Atlanta artistMichi Meko’s installation Studying the Silences: we used to eat this back home uses the dinner table as a site for uncovering cultural history and reclaiming… — Building upon a series of recent works inspired by the history of navigation, Atlanta artistMichi Meko’s installation Studying the Silences: we used to eat this back home uses the dinner table as a site for uncovering cultural history and reclaiming inheritance.

Staff PickMichi MekoThe day after Michi Meko’s recent exhibit Pursuit: Almost Drowned opened at Alan Avery Art Company, he almost drowned. “This is not a stunt to sale [sic] paintings. Nature just tested my metaphor and the ole boy stayed afloat,” h… — Staff Pick
Michi Meko
The day after Michi Meko’s recent exhibit Pursuit: Almost Drowned opened at Alan Avery Art Company, he almost drowned. “This is not a stunt to sale [sic] paintings. Nature just tested my metaphor and the ole boy stayed afloat,” he posted on Facebook next to a photo of him looking exhausted but delivered.