Biography
Like all artists, Michele was born to create and was drawn to art from an early age. After earning her degree in architecture from the University of Washington, she combined her professional life with love of travel. Her extensive travels and life experiences provide the solid platform from which her artwork is created. Her early training established a strong foundation in the Russian Impressionist tradition of seeing and painting shapes of light and color using relatively loose brushstrokes. She has studied extensively and have been influenced by numerous historic artists, most notably Nicholai Fechin, John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase.
While she is drawn to many painting genres; still life, landscape, cityscapes and figurative-it’s her individual style and paint application, that creates and maintains a constant theme throughout her body of work. She works primarily in oils, but also enjoys working in acrylics, gouache and pastels in her representational style. Establishing her own, unique, artistic voice is her primary goal. She will never paint the same image twice; every piece that I create is truly an original, completed to my highest standards. Through art she has had the opportunity to establish many long-term friendships with collectors, galleries and other artists. When a collector purchases a piece, she does not view it as a one-time event; she views it as a new friend for life.
“During my work in architecture, I felt deeply connected to the arts. But I truly discovered my passion when I began to explore oil painting. For me, the process of creating begins with a scene that I feel carries a certain energy and evokes an emotion. I find myself drawn to subject matter with rich colors or intriguing light. The vignettes of everyday life that inspire me to paint, regardless of whether it’s a landscape, figurative work, cityscape, or portrait. It is my primary goal to have each artwork I create resonate with energy and the poetry of light. I follow my own ‘rule’ of painting what is truly important to me and feel very fortunate to be able to share that with all those who support and appreciate my work. There is nothing more gratifying than knowing that my work, which is so important to me, is appreciated by others.”
