Featured Artist Misty Dempsey

Artist Misty  Dempsey shares a luscious portfolio of flowing, organic nature-inspired paintings. Enjoy her work and see more by visiting her website.

 

 

Prana, qi, mana, ki, plasma, and the field are just a few of the names for the cosmic energy said to flow through all things. My artwork is an exploration into what I think I know about the principles that govern this vital life force energy found throughout nature and the cosmos. That everything is connected, that everything comes out of something else, and that everything is always moving and changing.

 

 

I intuitively create nature-inspired works on paper. Using watercolor and gouache pigments, acrylic ink and paint, acrylic markers, pencil, and chalk pastels, I create an elegant tangle of organic forms, shapes, and patterns.

 

 

Visually, my work is bold, colorful, and has lots of movement and patterns. I tend to draw otherworldly imaginary organisms, watery symbiotic neighborhoods of life forms, or made-up flowers. Sometimes, my work is a snapshot of spinning spiraling components in the liminal space between an idea and their eventual form. It’s about the infinite possibilities of the invisible “raw materials” of nature poised to become whatever they need to become.

 

 

I’m also interested in how this natural energetic phenomena relates to spirituality. How it can be manipulated or harnessed to be more beneficial to living organisms.

 

 

I use shapes and curves to create art that is harmonious and comforting and feels like a dance. Birth and growth, expansion and contraction, and the divine feminine and divine masculine are themes evident in my work.

 

 

I’m a self-taught artist and have been creating art in a variety of media for over 25 years. These include digital art, paint on canvas, jewelry design, and textile art. It wasn’t until I began drawing on paper with wet pigments and mixed media that I felt I had found my unique style.

 

 

The way the pigments pool and bloom and then dry in a haphazard manner mesmerize me. I love that I can inform the paint, but not control it! I use these textures and effects to create patterns similar to those found in nature. The repetition of these patterns is very therapeutic and serves as a meditation of sorts while I am drawing.

 

 

I credit the breakthrough in my artwork with a qigong moving meditation class that I took just before the pandemic. The day after the class, I felt calmer and more focused, and felt that my creativity flowed more easily. My qigong practice is a continual and necessary part of my work! When the lockdowns happened soon after, I took advantage of that uninterrupted time to delve into my work, and have been prolifically producing and marketing my work ever since.

 

 

I mostly participate in art shows and festivals around my home in East Tennessee but am seeking to increase my gallery presence in the future.

 

Misty Dempsey invites you to follow on Instagram.

 

 

Want to stay current on cutting edge business articles from Artsy Shark, plus artist features, and an invitation to the next Call for Artists? Click below to sign up for our twice-monthly email. You’ll get all this plus opportunities and special offers that you can’t get anywhere else!