Biography:

Michelle received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas, Austin in 2007, with concentrations in Painting, Drawing, Sculpture and Serigraphy. Post undergrad, she worked at a contemporary art gallery, as a floral designer, and as a professional artist, painting, exhibiting, and teaching from her studio in Denver, Colorado. Exhibit highlights include group shows in Denver and Dallas between 2008 and 2010, a solo show in Boulder, Colorado at the Dairy Center for the Arts in 2011, and additional group shows between 2012 and 2014 in Houston, Texas. The two major bodies of work produced during those years, totaling 30 large-scale oil paintings, have been purchased by collectors in both Colorado and Texas, while a series of 100 smaller works in acrylic and oil have been sold locally and shipped to locations around the United States. 

More recently, in 2018, she returned to painting with a fresh perspective, venturing for the first time into abstraction. So far in 2020, Michelle has shown with Mirus Gallery and 40 West Gallery in Denver and plans to show at ‘The Other Art Fair,’ in Dallas, in September 2020, following several online features with SaatchiArt.com in late 2019. Michelle’s work is featured in the current Spring Edition 17 of ArtMaze Magazine.

Statement:

In this series of paintings I have attempted to move beyond a literal depiction of landscape into a more abstract expression of the natural environment, emphasizing movement and energy through the use of color, line and form. I begin each piece with a digital sketch, layering transparent shapes that mimic simplistic clouds, hills, or ocean waves. Lines that emanate from and slice through the central body animate the scene. Rhythmic repetitions of swelling shapes, like a visual representation of music, at times advance right off the pictorial edge, suggesting a continuation of form beyond what is visible; the sharp shapes, a counterpoint to the flowing undulations of the rest of the composition. I choose color gradually, at times intentionally and at times spontaneously, using gradients and contrasting values to reference generalized light and shadow. A final figure emerges, pliably harmonizing with its surrounding environment, despite the vigorous forces imposed upon it.