As a self-taught relief printmaker, I have spent the past four years honing my carving skills through an ongoing body of work titled, “The Adventures of the Catsronauts and Their Intergalactic Neighbors”. This series explores the human figure and body language transposed into spacefaring animals, balancing my never-ending need to play pretend with the quest to define my identity. 

I utilize an analog approach in the preparation and development of the image before carving it into the matrix. For each image in the series, I photograph and trace my body before modifying the shape of the animal to fit my body language and pose. The process of tracing and changing the initial photograph multiple times presents the opportunity for me to challenge the deeply ingrained dysmorphia/diet culture I grew up in during the 1990s. The lines of the body are changed, not erased, from feminine-presenting to gender-neutral, an intentional refocusing from the over-sexualization of female characters in Sci-Fi narratives to a place that allows all viewers to see themselves in each print. 

As children, we are safe in the pursuit of the impossible through our imagination, adulthood in our current society brings a creeping fear of expressing and nurturing individual curiosity, creativity, and play. The alien yet familiar feeling of the body language in my work is a metaphor for the venturous and fearful nature the exploration of the unknown brings, both within and without.

Mimi King is a printmaker and collage artist living and working in Richmond, VA with her trusty studio cats, Captain Catnip and Clementine, and her husband. She teaches relief and intaglio printmaking and 2D Design & Color Theory at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA.