Mia Farrington: Refrain

In REFRAIN, Farrington turns to raw linen canvasses to expand her oeuvre of bold, hard-edged geometric abstraction. Inspired by the deserts of central Oregon, Farrington calibrates rocklike shapes next to each other in calming, meditative arrangements. Stoic onyx forms and delicate pastels create elegant dialogues on top of rustic, textured linen. Farrington isolates and magnifies only the most specific color variants of a natural setting, letting indecipherable feeling resonate with the viewer, counting on our personal associations to infiltrate the work. From a distance her paintings appear as pitch-perfect compositions, though up close they reveal subtle imperfections— the painter’s hand, irregularities in the linen— that mirror the flawed beauty of our relationships with ourselves and others.

Mia Farrington was born in Vermont and currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She received a BA in Studio Art with a concentration in painting and minor in Art History from the University of Vermont in 2004. Farrington’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Portland, New York, and North Carolina. Her work is in numerous public and commercial including the Alexis and Andra Hotels in Seattle, and in private collections throughout the US.