We experience the world in wordless ways before we language it, and it is in this pre-discursive realm where the transitional and plural interconnections between things retain their presence and vibrancy, before the experiences may be named in ways that attempt to transform and stabilise them, that I create my work.
Michaela is an artist working across the realms of sculpture, wearable art and performance, with her history and practice in dance and somatics informing her material processes.
Her work is an exploration of felt experience, garnered through the deeply embodied and intuitive relationships we form with the natural world, and developed through the artistic encounter. Through her practice she investigates the qualities, tones and temporalities that constitute the intimate fabric of relations between the sensing being and their environment, and the places of resonance between natural and cultural ecologies.
Working in highly explorative ways to develop material languages that are nuanced and sensory, Michaela collaborates in transformative processes with substances, environmental entities and energies, and chemical and electrical forces, where they find agency and some form of authorship in her creative process. Her primary area of studio research involves exploring the affective potential of materials, where she focusses on the threshold points of transformation between one substance and another, as an expression of the alchemy of becoming. Here, she develops evocative metal-textile blends by growing copper into velvet and organza through electroforming, creating a material that hovers between the known and the unknown, and meshes a naturally occurring, elemental substance from deep in the earth, with one that is humanly manufactured. Her work also incorporates bronze, glass and ceramic.
In exploring the transformative aspects of our felt and intuitive relationships with materials and environment, Michaela’s work brings to light the nuance and richness of becoming, how it coheres us within what seems to lie beyond us, and the liminal spaces of unknowing that allow these transformations to take place.
Images from top/left:
Meshes with Wind and Light 2018
Quale X 2016, velvet, shantung, copper, 100 x 60 x 75mm
CV
EDUCATION
2017 - 2022 PhD Art, RMIT University
2013 - 2016 Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours), RMIT University
2009 Diploma of Theatre Arts, Victoria University
1996 - 2002 Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Visual Communication, University of Technology Sydney
Visual art
Solo Exhibitions
2022 Subtle Bodies: transcorporeal becoming in threshold realms, Meatmarket, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Meshes, Pieces of Eight Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 Half-light, Black Finch, Melbourne, Australia
Awards & Award Exhibitions
2022 Victorian Craft Awards, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia - Finalist
2019 Diana Morgan Post-graduate Award, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia - Winner
2019 Victorian Craft Awards, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia - Finalist
2019 Profile ’19 Award Exhibition, Australian Design Centre, Sydney, Australia - Finalist
2019 Schmuck, Internationale Handwerkmesse, Munich, Germany - Finalist
2018 National Contemporary Jewellery Award, Australia - Winner
2017 Itami International Jewellery Exhibition, Japan - Finalist
2017 Graduate Metal XV, Radiant Pavilion Festival, Australia - Finalist
2017 Marzee International Graduate Show, Netherlands - Finalist
2017 Contemporary Wearables ’17 Biennial Jewellery Award & Exhibition, Australia - Student prize winner
2017 Victorian Craft Award, Australia - Lynne Kosky Jewellery Encouragement Award winner
2017 Craft Fresh! Graduate Showcase, Australia - Pieces of Eight Gallery Award winner
2016 Emily Hope Figurative Award, RMIT University - Winner
2016 Vice-Chancellor’s List Award for academic excellence, RMIT University
2015 Koodak Top Student Award for Third Year, Gold and Silversmithing, RMIT University
2015 Vice-Chancellor’s List Award for academic excellence, RMIT University
Acquisitions
2019 W.E McMillan Collection, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
2018 Griffith Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales, Australia
2017 Toowoomba Regional Gallery, Queensland, Australia
2016 W.E McMillan Collection, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Collect, Somerset House, London, United Kingdom
2023 Pieces of Tomorrow, Pieces of Eight Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2022 Victorian Craft Awards, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
2021 Far from Here, Schoolhouse Gallery, Rosny Farm Arts Centre, Hobart, Australia
2020 Emerging Jewellery Objects, Assembly Point, Melbourne, Australia
2020 Surface Level, INTRO by Marzee, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2019 Victorian Craft Awards, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
2019 Profile ’19 Award Exhibition, Australian Design Centre, Sydney, Australia
2019 Earthbound, lightbound, Radiant Pavilion, Rubicon ARI, Melbourne, Australia
2019 The Worn Debris Collective, Radiant Pavilion, Testing Grounds, Melbourne, Australia
2019 MasterMakers, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2019 Schmuck, Internationale Handwerkmesse, Munich, Germany
2018 National Contemporary Jewellery Award, Griffith Regional Art gallery, NSW, Australia
2018 Frame at Schmuck, Galerie Marzee, Munich, Germany
2018 Vanguard, NGV Design Week, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Itami International Jewellery Exhibition, Japan
2017 Jewellery - the best young international jewellery designers selected by Marzee, Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmegen
2017 Marzee International Graduate Show, Galerie Marzee, Netherlands
2017 Close to Here, Radiant Pavilion Festival, Stephen McGlaughlin Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Graduate Metal XV, Radiant Pavilion Festival, First Site Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Wondernamel, First Site Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Contemporary Wearables ’17 Biennial Jewellery Award & Exhibition, Toowoomba Regional Gallery, Queensland, Australia
2017 Victorian Craft Awards, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Fresh!, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
2016 Wondernamel, First Site Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2016 Back to Back, First Site Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 Wondernamel, First Site Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 To render, Boom Gallery, Geelong, Australia
Publications
2021, ‘Subtle Bodies: Corporeal and Material Becoming in Threshold Landscapes’, in Walking as a Radical and Critical Art of Enquiry: Embodiment, Place and Entanglement, International Journal of Education through Art, Volume 17, No.1.
Conference Presentations
2019, ‘Subtle Bodies: Corporeal and Material Becoming in Threshold Landscapes’, Con/servare International Forum, Location, Relationships & Practice, Melbourne University, Melbourne, Australia
Contemporary dance
Solo Work
2019 Dream diviner, solo performance for Between Appearances: the art of Louise Weaver, Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne
2013 Some thread of night, Pieces for Small Spaces, Lucy Guerin Inc, Melbourne
2012 Sun in theta, Your Way, Dancehouse Fringe Festival, Melbourne
2012 Lexicon for a storm, Alive! Dancehouse 20th Anniversary performance, Melbourne
2009 Limina, Dance Massive Festival, Melbourne
2007 Triplet, John Cage’s Musicircus - Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne
2004 Origin, The Dance Card, Dancehouse, Melbourne
2003 Cocoon, Bodies Dance Festival, Sydney
2002 Come Slumber, Bodies Dance Festival, Sydney
Selected Group Projects
2018/19 Nadja-Leona, Jude Walton, Alliance Francaise, Melbourne
2017/18 The Drill Hall Project, Jude Walton, The Drill Hall, Melbourne
2015 Lehte II, Jude Walton, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
2014 The Lines of Birds, Paea Leach, Chunky Move, Melbourne
2009-12 This Skin Between Us, Siobhan Murphy & Dominic Redfern, Melbourne
2005 The Backs of Things, Siobhan Murphy, Melbourne
2005 The Long little little little long way, Paul Romano, Dancehouse Melbourne
Dance Films
2012 Strand (in collaboration with Siobhan Murphy and Dominic Redfern)
2008 Hedging (in collaboration with Dominic Redfern)
2005 Gleam (in collaboration with Siobhan Murphy)
Dance Award Nominations
2015 Greenroom Award for best female dancer
2010 Reeldance Award - 6th International Dance on Screen Festival