CLARKSVILLE, TN.- Pastel paintings in cool, saturated tones have come to the walls of the Customs House Museum. The vibrant colors of Mikki Dillon’s art jump from the frames in the museum’s Orgain Gallery. Dillon uses bright blue, lavender, and greens hues to document her visions of the every day. She says of her work “I refer to my paintings as ‘moments in time’ or ‘slices of life’. When you see them, you are there with me, at these places, entering my memory bank. When working from a model, I share the life experience and the pain of the pose. Sometimes we painters are allowed to share their joys, dreams, and accomplishments. As you see them in my paintings, know that you may feel what I felt as I got to know them, mind and body.” With pieces like Who Knows the Future the viewer gets the sense of contemplation on the part of the figure; while works such as Muscle Man tend to leave one feeling a little intrusive and voyeuristic.

Mikki has studied with noted artists Frank Webb, Katherine Chang Liu, Maxine Masterfield, Abert Handell, Carole Katchen, Sally Strand, Alan Flattmann and Wolf Kahn. She has won numerous national awards and has achieved signature status in six national pastel societies, in addition, one of Distinguished Pastellist in the Pastel Society of the West Coast. Mikki is a signature member of the Knickerbocker Artists of America, of the National Association of Women Artists, Inc. and is a full member of the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club (NY). Her work has appeared in Best in Pastels Quarry, Northlight’s Best in Portraiture, Pastel Artist International, and Pastel Journal.

Captured Color will be on view through September. Located at the corner of Second and Commerce Streets, the Customs House Museum is the second largest general museum in Tennessee.