ABOUT
Biography
Michelle Wilson is an interdisciplinary thinker, whose work involves papermaking, printmaking, book arts, installation, and social practice.
She has exhibited her work both internationally and in the United States, including participation in biennials such as Philadelphia's Philagrafika 2010 and the 2006 Second International Biennial for the Artist's Book in Alexandria, Egypt. Her practice includes frequent collaborations with other artists; in particular her ongoing collaboration with Anne Beck as the Rhinoceros Project.
Artist-in-Residence programs that she is an alumna of include the David and Julia White Colony in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica, the Jentel Artist Residency Program, in Banner, Wyoming, the San José Museum of Quilts and Textiles, and LAB-8’s Riabitare con l'Arte program in Abruzzo, Italy. In addition, she served as a Teaching Artist for the NIAD Art Center, (Richmond, CA) and Southern Exposure’s program at the Oakland Juvenile Hall.
Grants and awards she has received include a a 2022 ArtsCatalyst Award from Stanford Univeristy, 2021 Artistic Excellence in Programming Grant from San Jose State University, a 2013 Artist-Investigator Grant from the San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts, and the 2007 Lenore Edelman Award for Book Arts. As a member of the Rhinoceros Project, she is a recipient of a 2020 Barbara Deming Foundation Grant, and a 2016 Puffin Foundation West Grant. Creative Capital designated her as an "On Our Radar" artist in 2015.
She is a past hand-papermaking advisor to Signa-Haiti, a non-governmental organization developing a sustainable and bio-dynamic economy in Haiti. Wilson currently teaches at San Jose State University and Stanford University, as well as workshops throughout the Bay Area and beyond. Wilson’s imprint is Rocinante Press. A former longtime resident of Philadelphia, Wilson now lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Artist Statement
My art finds synchronicity between personal narrative and contemplative activism.
My work takes the form of paper, installations, sculptures, prints, artist books, collages, and social practice interventions, all based on handmade paper I make myself. This paper is typically from plants I grow myself, or invasive plants I harvest, for which my studio practice becomes a means of clearing habitat space for native ecology. Paper is traditionally considered a substrate; however in my work the very fibers of it’s making transcend this to become signifier, content, documentation of history and place, and embodiments of site-specificity. The plants I gather manifest records of seed migrations, weather patterns, soil conditions, climate change and other intersections between humanity and the natural world. These manifestations in paper become a lens to view the greater world, and serve as an impetus to storytelling.
In the nonlinear narratives I present, location and landscape play a role. They are more than setting; they are characters and catalysts for transformation. The exterior landscape depicted is an embodiment of an interior landscape explored, a manifestation of my cognitive environment. Much of my work concerns the crossroads of human psychology, political and social actions, ecological systems, and how social and environmental justice often go in unison. Many of the narratives I explore have a duality or interconnection of ideas: the crossroads of politics and the environment, colonialism and natural history, wordplay, migration, vegetation, and the loss of diversity.
These concepts are accompanied by a sense of solastalgia; the disquiet or psychic distress caused by environmental change. Through this use of narrative, I ask viewers to recognize the unease they experience when faced with these matters.
My work addresses a changing world, and the complexities of meaning, sentiment, and consequences therein.
Collections
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Franklin Furnace Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt
Artist Book Collection, University of Telavi, Republic of Georgia
Mediatheque André Malraux, Strasbourg, France
Print and Picture Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Art of the Book Collection, Yale University, New Haven, CN
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University, New York, NY
Environmental Design Library, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley CA
Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection, Columbia University, New York, NY
Cynthia Sears Collection, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bainbridge Island, WA
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
San José Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San José, CA
Permanent Art Collection, Miami-Dade Public Library, Miami, Fl
The Janet Turner Print Museum, Chico, CA
Kenosha Public Museum, Kenosha, WI
The Arthur and Mata Jaffe Collection, South Florida University, Boca Raton, FL
The Newark Public Library, Newark, NJ
Sherman Art Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
The Bibliograph Collection, Montreal, Canada
Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries, Seattle, WA
Hill Memorial Library, Baton Rouge, LA
University of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, LA
Enders Ornithology Collection, Watkinson Library, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
Swarthmore College Library, Swarthmore, PA
Booksmart Studios, Rochester, NY
Special Collections, Amherst College Library, Amherst, MA
The Garthwaite Institute for Art and Science, Cambridge School of Weston, Weston, MA
Ruth R. Hodges Artist Book Collection, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
Special Collections, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA
Special Collections, Mills College, Oakland, CA
Special Collections, Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San José, CA
Special Collections, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN
Special Collections, Lafayette College, Lafayette, PA
Decker Library, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD