Michelle Bird

Hot lava pours into the sea, volcanic glass fragments mix with black sand beaches - as a young child Michelle Bird stood at the edge of strong cultural tides, inheriting her Chinese artist father's classical eye and her Western mother's courage with bold architectural form. Described as "tactile and erotic," abstract expressionist Bird's paintings radiate the fusion of cultures and colors. Michelle Bird came early to her love of color as she leaned barefoot into the ocean wind hunting the last subtle green flash in her Hawaiian sunset. When her family moved to California she added the texture of old growth Redwood forests, San Francisco fogs, plump grape vines and desert silt. Her paintings reflect a wide palette of almost Baroque colors. "I paint fervently for long intervals," says the artist, "as if I were walking blindfolded through nature, feeling the color with my skin."

EXHIBITIONS & RESIDENCIES

Michelle Bird has exhibited her art at Galerie Cècile Charron in Paris, Galleria Ingenio in Torino and Galleria del Arte Ill Milennio in Venice Italy, in Switzerland at the Gallery Knoerle Baetig Fine Art, Gallery Mainau, Zurcher Kantonal Bank and AXA Winterthur. In the Netherlands she apprenticed with the painter poet Anton Martineau and attended the Rietveld Academy. In India she apprenticed at the Honey Arts Modelling Center learning single bronze casting techniques. She received art grants from the SSV Uppbyggingarsjóðs Vesturlands in Iceland and the Karolina Funds in 2018, 2017, 2016. Other art venues included art residencies and at the Baer Art Center and the Association of Icelandic Visual Artists center.

PROJECTS

In Iceland she established the platform Fluxus Design Tribe where she features collaborative social art initiatives. She is the co-organizer of the Borgarnes Film Freaks Event in 2018, 2017 and co-produced the documentary Pourquoi Pas Borgarnes, both of which received grants. In Switzerland she co-founded and organized the artist platforms and events: Open Doors and Outside Inside. For 6 consecutive years she published the annual art publication MAP Magazine Artist Professionals in Winterthur. In The Netherlands she co-produced and illustrated the book 'Closed Curtains Lives of de Wallen'. Paintings and illustrations of hers have been published by The Café Review Maine's Poetry Journal and the Dutch & Belgium publication Joie de Vivre.

TEACHING

From her art studio she hosts exploratory painting workshops for artists, adults and children. In 2019 the town of Djúpavogshreppur hired her to create a 4 day blind painting workshop with 18 students who collaborated on abstract paintings that were in turn exhibited at the Egilsstaður Youth Art Exhibition. In 2019 together with Creatrix she established SUFA Stand Up For Art. This culturally funded credit course was offered to the students at the Mentaskolin college in Borgarnes, where she coached and assisted emerging artists in creating a body of art work, presentation and construction of an exhibition. As part of the Gleðileikur Happy Games in Borgarnes in 2017, Bird hosted 40 students in her art studio for a 3 day blind painting workshop. The colorful large panels they created now adorn the school and serves as a reminder of their artistic collaboration. In 2019, 2018, 2017 & 2016 she taught art workshops for the Ungmennasamband Borgarfjarðar Borgarnes.

Oustide of Iceland she has taught workshops for adults with disabilities for the Comune di Torino. Switzerland's Kanton Schule Zürich has invited her to host more than a dozen demonstrations for their program A Wie Atelier. She has given group workshops in experimental and blind painting to the engineers at Google Zürich, GIS-Zentrum Baudirektion Kanton Zürich and to the Integrative Psychiatric clinic in Winterthur.