Mille Guldbeck’s responsive practice is an exploration in open process and focuses on the nature of transformation. With abiding interests in natural phenomenon and the mark of the hand, she investigates the logic inherent in misdirection and interpretation. Guldbeck’s practice navigates a variety of processes and color palettes to create both flat and airy spaces, conveying a sense of immediate and ever-present time. She says, “The ‘magic’ happens when patterns and limitations are established through repetition, and then broken.”

Artist Statement

Inquiries about painting and sculpture, the investigation of space, and the power of line and color are the foundation of my work. I abstract from my perception of relationships in nature in order to realize materially and painterly how shape and color can embody content and feeling.

As the shapes or lines from my paintings take on a three dimensional form, I seek to activate the space through a process that mirrors the act of painting. A painterly gesture may pose as the illusion of a sculpture on a traditional drawing surface. The images shift scale and move from gesture to illusion, from serious formalism to comic strip lightness.

Through creating a space for the forms to live, I investigate how they operate together and apart, and together yet apart.