Formula Rebel | Mione Plant

Join us in welcoming Miller Gallery's newest addition to our talented roster of artists, Mione Plant. Mione believes we are all artists, and paints visual reminders to herself and her viewers to pay attention to the beauty and wonder around us, to listen for and follow our curiosities, and to play. 

While her stories hold a consistent undertone of letting go of fear, Mione - inspired by the reconnection with her child-self along with raising her young son - infuses each painting with levity and playfulness. Her work’s signature elements of whimsy and vibrant color palettes harmonize with its accompanying message. 

Learn more about Mione and her collection below!

Meet the Maker

Mione Plant is an artist, writer and a recovering perfectionist.

Throughout her decade-long career in engineering, Mione - inspired by The Artist’s Way - took slow and incremental steps to rediscover her creativity while realigning with her curiosities. Eventually Mione left her career to pursue her creativity as a full-time artist.

Today, Mione pulls from her lived experiences and challenges to inspire a body of work rich with meaning and thoughtful transformation. Influenced by her daily practice of morning journaling, Mione weaves both visual and written stories of her personal breakthroughs and discoveries.   

Aided by her time in engineering, Mione blends the left and right brain, creating beautifully mathematical combinations both lovers of structure and playful vibrancy can enjoy. 
 
Mione inspires us to find the artist within; to live a life rich with meaning, curiosity and joy.

Formula Rebel 

"When deciding to create a 6-piece series this year - my first time with a series this size - I realized the only way to work through it, and complete it within the timeline, would be to set up a formula to streamline my process.

 Six pieces in tandem. First their backgrounds, then borders, then frameworks, then imagery, then details, then clean up, then framing, then writing. This formula my path forward. Artistic and efficient. An engineer-turned-artist’s ideal combo.

But it didn’t work.

 The formula immediately broke. Or I broke it. Or it was broken to begin with. I found my artwork rebelling against the formula. My heart rebelling against the mind. Of course it would.

 Art isn’t created in anything resembling a streamlined process. Neither is our growth. It’s slow and spontaneous, and delicate and fierce, and obstinate and playful. The pendulum swings between draining doubt and energizing epiphanies.

Forced to abandon the formula, I listened. Listened when my body said it was time to rest. Listened when it was time to let go of rules and play. Listened when curiosity was trying to push her way past perfectionism. 

I began working on one piece at a time. From start to a finished piece hanging on my own home’s walls. I lived with her story before beginning again.

Slow, inefficient, unoptimized growth.

Each painting has become an opportunity to rebel against my own personal formulas – a chance to sit with my unexamined insecurities, unchallenged coping mechanisms, unchecked habits, unnurtured esteem, and unexplored curiosities.

A chance to try everything in a new way. A chance to become a formula rebel."

- Mione Plant

The Collection

 Masters of the Subtle 

What would it look like to be a person that knows how to self-soothe? 

To trade in the large inconsistent bursts of dopamine - a flooding of the senses - for the reliable hum of the small, the quiet, the subtle? 

To savor a moment – of stillness, of calm, of lightness – for our conscious nourishment. 

To question the formula of how we’re supposed to unwind, in search of our personal restoration and collective liberation. 

A courage to take on the edge, to sit in it, with it. 

To no longer hide from our triggers, but to seek their release.

To shift from purveyors of the grand, to masters of the subtle.

Masters of the Subtle, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas

 Ho'oponopono

Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry. I forgive you.

We take four steps, to evict our past challenges from their residence in our minds. Making room for the best to come.

To reconcile, to look from all four corners. To imagine their best intention, and to forgive our worst.

To know each new challenge requires we practice again.

Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry. I forgive you.

Grounded in letting go; soaring with rainbows. 

 Ho'oponopono, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas

And Everything In Between

I began dividing the alphabet around four sides, 6 letters each, with two remaining – the A and the Z. Their omission suddenly became the point.

I move now into the meandering, making room for the messy, mustering my inner momentum. 

Relishing the path, its process and all its turns. 

Weaving a way forward; never back to where I started.

Releasing the destination, the perfect ending, the clean finish. 

The goal no longer the A to Z, but everything in between. 

 And Everything In Between, 24" x 24", acrylic and fiber on canvas

The White Stripes and The Black Keys 

His little fingers gracefully push the keys, a succession of notes form his favorite song. In celebration he dabs.

My curiosity as high as his notes. He teaches. My fingers ungracefully push the keys. In celebration I remark how fab.

The White Stripes and The Black Keys, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas

Just The Right Amount Of Wrong

My favorite tool in the box. A panacea for anything out of sorts.

But suddenly it doesn’t seem to soothe. 

Things are starting to feel a little bit off.

Off balance, off center, off course, off kilter. 

Perhaps off is ok. 

Perhaps the path isn’t polished and perfect isn’t progress. 

Maybe askew is more accepting. 

Maybe there’s right in the little bit of wrong. 

Maybe that’s how I level up.

Just The Right Amount Of Wrong, 24" x 24", mixed media on wood panel

Third Time's The Charm

Free from what I was as a child, what I was last week. Free to be me. 

Internal belonging; acceptance of the external. 

Untangled, bright. No goal but to Be.

Third Time's The Charm, 24" x 24", acrylic on canvas

The full collection is now available online. 

Shop Mione's available artwork here

For more information or purchase inquiries please contact info@themillergallery.com.