Interview
Mimi Wohlberg
Mimi is an artist based in Florida, after more than 75 years living in New York, with a degree from Parsons School of Design. Her studio, Mimi Wohlberg Studio, produces mixed media collage and painting across three collections — Reimagined Reality, Harvested in Layers, and Judaica. Mimi's work is rooted in family history, memory, and personal storytelling, shaped by the story of her parents, immigrants who met in Brooklyn and built a life together, and by decades of travel that continue to inform her color, pattern, and composition. A long career in interior design also runs through her art, giving her an eye for scale, texture, and how a piece lives within a space. That sensibility led to one of her proudest achievements: a large-scale installation at a chapel at JFK International Airport, seen by thousands of travelers passing through. Her recent work includes “From Sea to Shining Sea,” an open edition collage marking America's 250th anniversary and her family's own immigration story.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I studied at Parsons, but my path to calling myself an artist full-time wasn't a straight line. For many years I was an award-winning quilter, with installations shown both in the U.S. and overseas, and that work taught me so much about layering, pattern, and patience. My work has always been about layering — literally and personally. Every piece pulls from where I come from: my family's story, our traditions, the things that got carried across an ocean and passed down.”
What inspires you?
“Family history, first and foremost. My parents' immigration story, the idea of what gets built across generations. Travel has shaped me just as much, every place I've visited leaves its mark on my color and composition. And my mother, Dora — she was an artist in every aspect of life, even though she never called herself one. I think about her often when I'm in the studio.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“Connection is the thread that runs through everything I make, connection to family, to heritage, to the people and places that came before us. I'm drawn to themes of memory, identity, and belonging, and lately to the idea of peace, how something so universal can be expressed in so many different languages and voices. If there's a message, it's that our stories are layered, just like my materials, and that what we inherit and carry forward is worth honoring.”
How would you describe your work?
“Layered, both literally and emotionally. I work in mixed media and collage, so you'll see paint, paper, texture, and found objects built up piece by piece. I'd describe it as warm, personal, and rooted in storytelling rather than abstraction for its own sake, every piece is meant to feel like it has a history behind it, because it does.”
What is your creative process like?
“I work in mixed media and collage, so there's a lot of layering — paper, paint, texture, found materials. My years in interior design taught me to think about scale and how a piece will actually live in a room, and that still shapes every decision I make. I usually start with an idea rooted in memory or travel, a place, a word, a feeling, and build outward from there until the piece finds its own shape.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I think an artist's role is to hold up a mirror, to help people see their own stories, their own histories, reflected back at them in a new way. Art has always been a way to preserve memory and pass down what matters, and I think that role is becoming even more important now. In a world that moves so fast and feels so divided at times, I see artists increasingly being called on to be bridge-builders, finding the common threads, like peace, family, and belonging, that connect people across cultures and generations.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“One of my proudest achievements is a large-scale installation I created for a chapel at JFK International Airport, seen by thousands of travelers passing through every day. That project brought together everything I love, the scale and spatial thinking from my interior design background, and the personal, layered storytelling at the heart of my art.”
