Imbuing new life into forgotten scraps of paper offers Michelle a rich interplay within the medium of collage. This fusion, the transformation and rebirthing, underpins her practice. It is a chance to steer away from the digital and submerge into the tactile. If she is drawn to the hyper-real, there is reason to free the viewer from the mundane. Incorporating fragments from stock or vintage images, old cabinet photos, sometimes her own photography, chance juxtapositions invite different realities. Her artwork is conceptual, often future-focussed, with an eye for pin-pricking injustice.

Collaborating in the international arena, she has participated in the publication and exhibition The Art of Car(d)s (UK, 2022), and the exhibition Look Around (Quebec, 2022), which linked artists from twenty-five countries through the exercise of Japanese Ensō, or circle of togetherness.

In 2023, she was selected as a finalist for the inaugural Trades Hall Art Prize, culminating in an exhibition. Michelle’s cover art for the Australian Poetry Anthology was shortlisted for the Contemporary Collage Magazine Awards (2023) under the commissioned category.

You can find more about Michelle’s collaborations in her News page here. Or follow her Instagram account here.

SHOW OF HANDS

This 10-part series investigates fragmented, often disruptive histories, relinquishing control to offer the human hand a narrative. Commissioned by Cordite as part of their Amble edition (2021). Find four images from this series below.

XYLOGRAPHICA - Reimagining Albrecht Dürer, Artist Book

An experimental non-fiction leporello incorporates the work of Albrecht Dürer by re-forming 15th century narratives into contemporary visual forms. Forty pages allow for thematic discourse into religion, mathematics, the personality of self, a comparative diagnosis between the first woodblocks and 21st century collage. Find 10 pages below; this book was a contender for The Kanyer Art Collection, USA.

WHAT THE BIRDS ARE SAYING

This series is an on-going forum — let the birds speak of some highly flawed humans, with themes of jeopardy and displacement.