Michelle Marcuse
Forms of Structure
2020
Cardboard
7-1/2" x 8" x 9-1/2"

About the work

Having lived in Philadelphia, a city that presents through its architecture, spatial grid, industrial history, physical memory of construction, and disintegration over time, I find a paradoxical fertility occurring within the breakdown of materials, and in the qualities of presence and absence that I see in the built, destroyed, or "disappeared" structures. It is in this manner of build-up and destruction that I tend to generate my work.. My use of discards is deliberate. These raw materials have an expressive quality and are easily manipulated. As elements that are non-precious, free and plentiful, my curiosity and experimentation can take place unhindered.

About the artist

The work of Michelle Marcuse mirrors and symbolically chronicles her childhood experiences, dream states, both past and present, and encapsulates commentary on contemporary living. Growing up in apartheid South Africa during the late 1950s - 1970's, her fragmented architectural forms and decayed environments express the remembrances of and issues surrounding society under duress.

Receiving a Bachelor of Design from the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Israel, [1982], she continued to Michaelis School of Art at The University of Cape Town [1983] and completed her BFA at Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA [1985]. She was invited to exhibit with BLAM Projects Brooklyn, NY [2016], Arte y Amor at Taller Boricua, NYC [2016] and Borderless Caribbean [The Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance, Miami, FL 2015]. Michelle is a recipient of a 2016 Fleisher Art Memorial Wind Challenge exhibition. Her work can be found in public and private collections including The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the collection at the US Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. Most recently she became a Finalist in CFEVA's Visual Artist Fellowship. In December 2018 she was invited to Against Gravity: TECTONICS - Imagined Spaces: an exhibition organized by DORAL Contemporary Art Museum in the framework of Art Basel, FL. February, 2019, an invitation to exhibit with Grizzly Grizzly in Philadelphia is planned followed by an installation in April 2019 at EY - INTUITIVE Art Space in Manayunk and organized by Mount Airy Contemporary in Philadelphia, PA. Marcuse most recently had a solo exhibition at Swarthmore College, PA, in 2020. Upcoming exhibitions at The Kunshan Art Museum, Kunshan, China, and at The AVA Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa are currently postponed until it is safe to travel.

Michelle Marcuse lives and works in Philadelphia where she is Co-Director of HOUSEGallery a mixed use exhibition space in Fishtown.

InLiquid, michellemarcuse.com

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