Women United ART PRIZE 2023
Painting & Drawing Category
finalist

ARTIST BIO

Michelle Doll’s paintings capture quiet, private moments hinged on personal connections between herself and her subjects. Her paintings are infused with themes of intimacy and introspection and explore contemporary ideas about family, love, desire and femininity. The subject matter, although not idealized in form, implies idealized moments of intimacy that we all either consciously or unconsciously crave. Born in Canton, Ohio, she received her BFA from Kent State University and her MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2006. She currently lives and works in Hoboken, NJ and is an adjunct professor at the New Jersey City University while also teaching private lessons in person and online. She has taught numerous workshops worldwide in cities such as Rome, Oslo and New York. In 2019 she received a fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Among her other awards and acknowledgements, Michelle received the Prince of Wales / Forbes Foundation Travel Grant in 2006, was granted Artist in Residence at Eden Rock on St. Barth’s (French West Indies) in 2008 and received The Bennett Prize Honorable Mention in 2018. Her paintings have been exhibited in the US and internationally in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Barcelona, Oslo, Salzburg and Basel, Switzerland.

Michelle’s artwork has been the subject of numerous interviews and Podcasts such as ArtSpeak NYC, American Art Collectors Magazine, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, White Hot Magazine, Evolved Magazine, John Dalton Podcast, The Drop Interviews and The Art Grind Podcast. Her work is is also featured in numerous books including “The Figure”, by Margaret McCann (a Rizzoli Publication) and “The Figurative Artists Handbook”, by Robert Zeller (Published by Moncelli Studio).

ARTIST STATEMENT

I’m attracted to the physical and metaphysical energy that exists between individuals who share a deep connection: the touch between a couple, the closeness between a mother and child. These transient flashes of human contact hold meaning in the creases, crevices, overlaps, folds and weight of connecting bodies. I experience each brush stroke as a way of recording both the physical body and the invisible mental dialogue during a private moment. In scrutinizing these deep human feelings, I evoke an intimate connection of the mind, body, and soul through the tactile substance of paint.
These paintings are meditations for me to be present with the positive aspects of love and connection. The work is about real people who share honest feelings of connection, and it is work that feels deeply meaningful to me. To that end, I paint people I personally know, who feel intimate love and true connection with each other. My objective is to preserve significant memories within the emotional dialogue of two bonding individuals. Above all, I want to fill my own life with the positive energy of love, and these painted meditations on intimacy are a way to be present with those sensations.

Hoboken, NJ / United States