Draft:Mychaelyn Michalec

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Mychaelyn Michalec is an American contemporary artist. Her mediums are drawing, painting and, since 2019, primarily rugmaking and fiber art. Her fiber works are informed by the part of her process that is anchored in drawing and painting and, as a result, exist directly adjacent to painting.

Over the past decade Michalec’s paintings and fiber art works have drawn predominantly from observations of domestic life from a feminist perspective and, more recently, have harnessed the same feminist perspective to investigate the lives of contemporary women. Her work uses these structures as a way of investigating the history of Feminism and, more specifically, Second Wave Feminism and its effect on the lives of women in her generation and the generations that have followed.

Women artists before, during and in the wake of Second Wave Feminism such as Ree Morton, Honoré Sharrer and Alice Neal, have influenced her oeuvre. These artists, Morton in particular, are often quoted in her work.[1] Michalec is also influenced by the arcane history of fiber arts, particularly work made anonymously by women throughout human history. Michalec’s background in the library sciences informs her research into the customs of fiber craft and the tradition of what is generally considered ‘women’s work” throughout history.

Education

Mychaelyn Michalec studied painting and drawing and art history at The Ohio State University. She holds a BA in Art History and a BFA With Distinction in painting and drawing from The Ohio State University.

She received a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Exhibitions, collections, and artwork

Michalec has mounted solo exhibitions at Untitled Space Gallery in New York, NY, K Contemporary Denver, CO, The Weston Gallery in Cincinnati OH, The Contemporary Dayton in Dayton, OH; and Roy G. Biv in Columbus, OH.

Michalec has been included in group exhibitions at The Bunker Art Space in West Palm Beach, FL; Marquee Projects in Bellport, NY; The Longwood Museum of Art in Longwood VA; and The Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, OH, among others.

Her work is held in the Collections of Beth Rudin DeWoody /The Bunker, The Collection of Sarah and Michelle Vance Waddell, Cincinnati, OH, Carla Shen, Brooklyn, NY and other private collections.

She has been awarded residencies at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska, The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts in New York and The Vermont Studio Center among others.

Michalec was selected as an Ohio Woman To Watch by the Ohio Advisory Group for the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and is a recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.

Before starting to work primarily in the fiber arts realm, Michalec’s more traditional paintings documented candid domestic scenes framed through the lens of her smartphone camera. This body of work allowed her to meditate not only on prescribed maternal roles from a feminist perspective, but also on the idea of tech, screens and the ubiquitous cameras and their role within the traditional family structure and how families have become distracted and remote. The observations that fed this body of work became more acute and universal as families endured the COVID 19 lockdown.

As of 2022 Michalec’s rug paintings have evolved into works that are exemplified by forays into abstraction, figuration, and unflinching self-portraiture. They also use allegorical, collaged compositions as a means to articulate and examine fallacies in our collective understanding of womanhood, domestic life, and freedom. During a talk at the Sarah Gormley Gallery with contemporary poet Maggie Smith in 2022, Michalec discussed these themes.[2]

References

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Categories:

• Contemporary art