Gallery 297

297 Hope Street
Second Floor
Bristol, RI 02809
401-253-5005
gallery@greenriversilver.com

Dora Atwater Millikin Biography

584792
Oil Painting
32" x 32"

Click on a thumbnail below to view larger image.



Dora Atwater Millikin grew up in Little Compton, Rhode Island. She graduated with the “Senior Art Prize” from the Stoneleigh-Burnham School, Greenfield, Massachusetts in 1979. Four years later she graduated from Newcomb College (Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana) with a BFA Degree in Painting, Drawing, and Art History.

In the Fall of 1998, she sought a more structured and academic art program and enrolled as a full time student at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts (Old Lyme, Connecticut). She graduated in May of 2002 with a BFA degree in Painting.

Today her subject matter focuses on coastal New England scenery with emphasis on the gritty, industrial aspects of the fishing industry and the increasingly more urban nature of local towns.

Dora is an artist member of the Providence Art Club and is currently painting with groups at the Lyme Art Association in Old Lyme, Connecticut. She is represented by several galleries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Her work is seen in private collections in Europe and the United States.

At the National Arts Club in NYC, Dora was the recipient of the Edwin Gould Foundation Award (2002). This award placed her fifth overall for that year In the Club's annual student exhibition featuring art schools in NYC and surrounding towns. Upon graduating from the Lyme Academy, she received the John Stobart Fellowship Award encouraging the transition to a professional career in painting. More recently, in 2005 she won top honors at the Annual Non- Member's Exhibition at the Salmagundi Club in NYC with the Joseph Hartley Memorial Award for Oil.

Dora continues to participate in local and National painting competitions and exhibitions (both solo and group). She serves on the Board of Directors for The Art League of Rhode Island as their Exhibitions Chair and Vice President.

Artist Statement

My work is about paint. It is about composition and it is about my struggle with color. I don't ever want my viewer to believe that my paintings are recorded statements on what I think I see. Rather, I want my audience to be aware of how I have interpreted what I see and how I feel about my subject matter and how it can be transformed through paint. Being a hands-on person, I find painting to be so complex that I can rarely think my way through the process of painting. Instead, I need to feel my way through.

I enjoy rendering potentially unpicturesque motifs and everyday objects and scenes in my life. I wish to present my world as it looks today without the nostalgia and sentimentality attached to past times. In essence, my paintings are created out of my personal experiences in and observations of life as I know it and through using flat patterns and contrasting solid planes of color, I am always searching for ways to deliver the unexpected to my viewer. I have been working on a technique that makes the viewer question: Which is more important the object or the environment in which it sits?

Since graduating from the Lyme Academy, (May, 2002), I have emphasized two areas in particular in my painting. First of all, it has been most important for me to define myself beyond school-hence the statement above. Secondly, I understand the importance of continuing my education and have worked on my drawing and painting skills as applied to the figure. I continue to study with Lyme Academy alumnae and value their influence and expertise. I believe, studying the figure informs the technical aspects in all my work.

Education

Group Exhibitions

Juried Shows

Solo Exhibitions

Awards and Fellowships

Collections

Professional Affiliations

Listings/Bibliography