Michaela is a ceramic artist exploring surface decoration and three dimensional form, treating the clay as a canvas to draw and paint on. Family is very important to Michaela and this theme is present in her artwork, she portrays the constancy of family and how this contributes to her sometimes unpredictable life.
ARTWORK
I’ve always wanted to do an installation of hearts, I’ve always been drawn to them and the representation of love. The fact that I’ve had my heart broken so many times has always gone parallel with my work which always seemed to break too? In the beginning I would try to start again, then I discovered the art of Kintsugi; The practice of fixing ceramic breaks with gold to make the break intentional and more beautiful than before. For those involved in domestic abuse your heart is broken many times. It then seems sometimes that it might never mend, but it does, and the end the result can be more beautiful than before. There are more people than we know walking around with broken hearts they don’t know that it can be healed. A wonderful story about restoration is when Las Vegas casino magnate and art collector Steve Wynn was saying goodbye to the famous “Le Rêve,” a painting of Pablo Picasso’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, “he accidentally whacked the masterpiece with his elbow, leaving a silver dollar-sized hole and scuttling the deal.” Cohen had agreed to buy the painting for $139 million, but now the deal was off. However the painting was restored and afterwards sold for $155 million! $16 million dollars more than before the damage! We become more valuable and beautiful when we have been heart broken than before. I would like people to pick pieces of the hearts I have made from paper clay, write or draw something on them, their name and the date. Fix it with golden glue and take home as a reminder that their heart is beautifully healed.
Don’t Dance This One, 2019
Ceramic Sculpture, paper clay, acrylic and enamel paint, pen.
“This is the dance of the abused. We learn the steps so as not to put ourselves in danger. At first we don’t know the dance, we tread on toes and miss cues but we soon learn. We move as we are led, we know he is in charge and we dare not question the way things go. We recognise each song and know how different music makes him dance. We move with him as one and try to not make ourselves be seen by making a mistake. We stay in hold and keep our position until the dance is over and we are judged did we do it right? Did we score a 10?”
