Michèle Atkinson
Originally from Quebec City and now living and working in Montreal, Michèle Atkinson grew up with artistic aspirations. At a young age she enrolled in painting and drawing classes that formed the foundation for her career as an artist. Atkinson had doubts about her creative abilities and put her artistic career on hold. During her life as a young mother Atkinson applied her creative passions to spinning and knitting the mohair of the angora goats she raised on her farm. However, she eventually gained more faith in her talent and underwent training at l'Académie Arts et Beaux-Arts in Varenne, Quebec, in the late 1990s. With the help of a dedicated professor, she studied subjects such as composition and art history, but mostly... colour. Her explorations of the landscape subject soon became recognized throughout Quebec as she participated in group and solo exhibitions. "Colour making feeds me, lets me see and feel a universe always more subtle."
Atkinson expresses her subjects in a very personal manner and paints with a sense of freedom and liberty. Her application of the medium is animated with a creative energy that flows across the canvas. Her expression of emotion and movement in her compositions is a testament to the artist's unique creations of colour.
Atkinson has developed a technique with home-made gesso and mylar that acts as support to the colours and shapes with which she conveys the emotion of a moment. She mainly works with oil paint, but often uses pencil and other mark making tools as well.
Michèle Atkinson explores and expresses the deep meaning we attribute to mundane objects and our everyday surroundings. Recently, she has turned her attention towards the subject of still life. She does not idealize her subjects, but tries to infuse them with a sacred quality, and invigorate an otherwise static being. She brings to her work a modern classicism that is neither old nor new, a uniqueness that doesn't reuse nor reinvent. It comes from within the artist's spirit, and translates into an image of peaceful beauty.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
"When I am in my studio, I consciously move to a space where I can let flow the feelings and emotions of memories, colours, light, forms, etc. This is when I invest myself into mark making, pigment mixing, scratching and rubbing the surface I work on to create an energy that feeds me and transpires on my paintings." |
