Michele Bourgeau was born in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan in 1954, number six of nine children. Easy proximity to nature in the form of ponds, lakes and natural wooded areas, as well as the culture of conformity and uniformity of the time pervaded Michele’s childhood. Love of the outdoors was as natural as the shade from the trees lining the backyard perimeter, but following rules and staying within the expected norms of parochial schooling and post WWII standards were also pervasive. Gender inequality, civil rights and school integration, space age, war protests, riots and sit-ins, political assassinations and the nuclear arms race are a sampling of the infusing themes atmospheric of this suburban baby-booming climate during Michele’s formative years.

Michele married her high school sweetheart with much joy only to become a single mother of four in her mid thirties. Returning to her own education by the time her eldest was in high school became a concentrated focus while raising her children with a desire for them to be complete as individuals, fostering a love of the arts, respect for self and others and regarding life as a daily gift.

Themes within Michele’s art are duality, identity and undefined beauty, adversity and resilience, and sensory expressed narratives. Crucial to her more mature work is Michele’s desire to utilize art as a truth-telling healing agent of expression and the normalization of internal healing. Michele has been influenced in art greatly by her creative siblings and children as well as Georgia O’Keefe, Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois, Gustav Klimt, Tasha Tudor, Carl & Karin Larsson and Marc Chagall.

Michele holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art from Wellesley College and a Masters of Elementary Education, Creative Arts & Learning, from Lesley University. She currently lives and works in Andover, Massachusetts with her husband, Timothy, and Irish Terrier, Zuzu. Michele enjoys time with her children and grandchildren, traveling, cooking and long hours spent in her perennial and herbal gardens, when not in her studio creating art.

❖

artist statement

I grew up in the midwest with eight siblings. We did not have much materially, but we did have each other and an inspiring junk drawer, crayons, cardboard and a natural forest to explore—along with a remarkably creative-minded and encouraging mother. I have always been infatuated by shiny objects, form and color and being highly sensitive and sensory is just who I am. I desire to celebrate the gifts of my youth through my art, playfully embracing quirky elements of design and color in order to express a poignant narrative. This playfulness allows me to see the unremarkable as extraordinary, to see that the darkness of life is the very gateway through which we advance to the light.

I enjoy using a variety or unexpected mix of mediums, both traditional and non-traditional, at times in combination and collage as well as sculptural assemblage. Whatever catches my eye, I piece together to create color, design and narrative, occasionally using written language and other times stimulating the viewer to tell the story. I seek beauty everywhere and desire to pay homage to the divine stories behind a piece of sea glass, lost bird feather or metal bed spring.

This gallery displays some older works as well as showcasing my more mature art pieces, where I am seeking to release conventional thinking and highlight the unremarkable and ambiguous. As a trauma survivor, my desire at times is to artistically convey the importance of unmasking our uniquely rich stories. Although we may be ill-prepared at the time, unexpected and unimaginable events do happen to us all and can haunt us as human beings. When we normalize trauma as a shared experience within our communities we allow for hope, and the transformative process of healing from darkness into greater light can begin. The courage to speak our truth emboldens us toward this healing and a greater self-love than we could previously have known.

I thank you for adventuring through my gallery thicket of sensory experience and color, not unlike the cherished forest I explored as a child. I invite you, welcomed viewer, to dialogue with my work and add your own experiences and creative imaginings to my narrative. Please come again as I continue on my own mindful exploration of foraging, gathering and healing and as I add to my art gallery collection.

❖

contact michele

michelebourgeau@gmail.com