Karmimadeebora McMillan was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina and is based in Brooklyn, New York. She has a MFA (2013) and Post Baccalaureate certificate (2011) from The School of the Museum of Arts, Boston. She also holds BA in Visual Arts, (1999) from Fayetteville State University, an AFA (1997) from Peace College. McMillan's paintings are influenced by her southern childhood through brightly colored fragmented quilted landscapes combined with characters from racist’s propaganda and black dolls she finds in southern flea markets.
After graduate school Karmima worked for the well-known street artist Swoon for 5 years as her business manager and helped start her non-profit organization Heliotrope Foundation, where she served as a member of the board and eventually became the Director of the foundation.
In addition to her practice as a painter, she has also performed with her mentor Magdalena Campos-Pons at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Queens Museum in New York, and Havana , Cuba Biennale 12.
Karmimadeebora is currently a part-time faculty member at SMFA at Tufts and pursuing a painting career in Brooklyn, New York.
#Retouched explores the disparate meanings of touch and the act of something being retouched. Touching a person’s body can be comforting, empathetic and a form of connection; however, it can also be unwelcoming, forceful, and demeaning. Retouching is a technique that makes alterations to an image, eliminating an imperfection and implying that an improvement has been made. We have the ability to change ourselves and our environments in the physical and digital spaces, but who are we ameliorating for? Using AI powered or synthetic intelligence to use different techniques such as clone stamping, zoom quilting, liquifying, photo compositing, and digital matte painting, the artworks use a hybridization of recognizable signs, pop culture symbols, and androgynous figures that shift between the familiar and uncanny, the primordial and the
futurist, nostalgia and hope.
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#Retouched was organized in partnership with CADAF.
