ABOUT mimi

Mimi Pinheiro is an artist from the Azorean-American diaspora in New Bedford, MA. Her great-grandfather was a harpooner on rowboats (baleeiras) on the island of Faial, where they first spotted the plumes of the volcanic eruption that led to their bittersweet escape to New England. 

Mimi studied geography, dance, anthropology and landed herself in Mexico City. It was in the historic city center,  at an experimental jazz concert on the fifth floor of a parking garage where she fell in love with a painting. The painting was called Nomada — by a student of José "Pepe" Barbosa, from the collective Grupo Suma.

She studied under Barbosa and his students for four years in a traditional apprenticeship in Coyoacán. They handmade paints with natural pigments and often traded paintings and finishing each other's work. It was a communal, devotional practice, the antithesis of the solitary artist.

She continues to make her own paints — mixing eggs, honey and minerals. Her signature red comes from Grana Cochinilla, a beetle that lives on the nopal cactus, its crimson coveted since the 2nd century BC.

Mimi paints quickly and instinctively. Her figures live in the gap between the self and the mask— she paints what leaks through. 

Paintings and drawings available for collection through Mooni in Condesa, Mexico City and Merchant House in New Orleans LA.

Formerly known as Nudes By Delivery.