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Artist 'liberating' mind with new OAC show

Pictured: M E Fuller with Silvan Durben / Photo credit: Josh LaFollette

The Montevideo-based artist, M E Fuller, is showing “Landscapes and Mindscapes — Small Works” at the Owatonna Arts Center until June 30.

Whether they’re looking at a landscape or a mindscape — she prefers not to say which is which — Fuller wants gallery-goers to let themselves connect with her paintings, not try to make sense of them.

“I want them to see it, feel it. People will often with abstract painting say, ‘Oh, I see a foot, I see a shoe, I see a lake, I see a tree.’ And that’s because we try to make meaning out of what we see, but I can tell you — I did not paint that,” said Fuller.

Fuller didn’t decide which pieces to include in the exhibition until the day it went up. She brought a wide array of her smaller pieces to the arts center, giving Artistic Director Silvan Durben a say in the final selection.

“Something of the essence of who she is comes through in this. This is not just someone who drops a lot of color or paint on a surface and then smiles at themselves,” said Durben.

As a graphic designer and art director, Fuller made a career of meeting the specifications of others. By the time she retired, she was done taking orders. Now, whether she’s writing or painting, she follows her own intuition.

Abstract painting didn’t come naturally to her at first, as though she had to unlearn the way she’d practiced for years. She credits an online class from UK artist Louise Fletcher with finally giving her a breakthrough. She’s now on her third year exploring the possibilities of abstract art.

“It is the most liberating thing I’ve done in my entire life,” said Fuller.

Fuller self-published her first novel, “Saving the Ghost,” in 2019. She described it as an “intense story” about a woman facing her PTSD and childhood trauma. Rather than outlining it, Fuller let the story grow in its own direction. She feels that helps her stop editing her thoughts, and allow her true voice to come forward.

She does deviate from her freewheeling approach occasionally, like on the two cozy mystery novels she’s published, or on her celestial paintings, which she always intended to capture the colors of the cosmos.

Generally, though, she likes her paintings to evolve organically. She often repaints them until she’s satisfied, putting down layer after layer of paint. In the end, there could be 20 different paintings hiding behind the surface of each one.

In that respect, they reflect the way Fuller sees herself.

“I’ve always said that I’m not me. I am the compilation, the aggregation of everyone who’s gone before me. I carry their pain, I carry their enthusiasm, I carry their nuttiness,” she said. “That’s what all this is.”

Fuller was recently diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, something that’s affected her for years but she never had a name for. Her visits to the Mayo Clinic’s Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Clinic even inspired a series of her paintings.

In seeking to understand her own health, she’s become increasingly interested in the human brain. She’s fascinated by how the amygdala, the brain’s tiny emotion processor, exerts influence over rational thought — how people are unconsciously driven by trauma, old memories and even family histories.

Her forays into brain science have dovetailed with one of the questions she grapples with in life and art: “Who are we really?”

That elusive identity is ultimately the only through line from one piece to the next.

“The unifying theme would be the fact that I exist. I’m fortunate enough at this time in my life to be free enough to be able to spend time creating,” said Fuller.

Landscapes and Mindscapes
at The Crossing Arts Alliance, Brainerd, MN

Landscapes and Mindscapes
at Kader Gallery, Pump House Regional Art Center, La Crosse, WI