MK Widener is a Milwaukee born and raised interdisciplinary artist. A recent UW-Milwaukee graduate, she flows between the practices of printmaking, illustration and digital art, often overlapping and meshing them together. Her printmaking work explores how digital language can be transformed and brought into the physical world, while her illustrative practice veers more towards coping and navigating the world as it is. In the small amounts of her free time, she enjoys biking, reading and trying to keep her two plants alive.
Mediums: Silk-screening, relief printmaking, digital
Favorite Artist Tool: Drawing tablet
Go-to Local Inspiration: Oak Leaf Trail, when the weather isn’t so cold that it hurts to breathe – I’ll spend hours there just biking along the path
Mentor Compliment: DeMar is so polite and laid-back; his general vibe and disposition is very calming to be around.
Fun Fact: I have a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
Serious Fact: I’m a chronic night owl – all my favorite art that I’ve created was thought up between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Artist Statement
My work seeks to explore the relationship between the digital world and the physical. As a 20-something practically raised on the internet, my relationship with it remains complex. Much of the visual language I utilize in my art circles back to things we associate with technology, such as pixels, metadata, glitching, etc. I then take these visuals and often contrast them with more naturalistic imagery, usually animals or religious iconography. My goal is not to create dialogue about how the digital sphere is ruining our lives nor about how amazing it is; I simply want an open discussion about its place in our post-internet world. Technology is many things: a savior, a cage, a reflection of our own desires – but at the end of the day, the technology itself is neutral. We, humanity, are actually the ones in control. For now.