Michi Meko created this painting while in residence at artpace, a nonprofit residency program in San Antonio, Texas. The title, Agave Mental Thicket, relates to Meko’s ideas about the correlation between inner and outer wildernesses. Lines and patterns intersecting within the layers of the composition suggest the visual language of mapping, while the forms and colors evoke the native plantlike of the South Texas desert. Meko has spent thousands of hours hiking, camping, and fishing in the wilds of his home state of Georgia. Embarking on similar trips in Texas, he found himself completely unprepared for the audacious environmental differences. “Having to confront that difference is a physical thing,” Meko says, “ but then it’s also about what that means psychologically.” The danger and unforgiving harshness of the outside environment brought him closer into contact with his inner harshness. "I began thinking about those agave plants and cacti as just different versions of abstractions that I could arrive at from looking at what’s in front of me,” Meko says. “I started thinking about how we, or I, most of us, have these aggressive sides and abstractions within us as well.”