Michele Riche 

About Michele:

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Michele received her BFA at St. Lawrence University and continued her education in New York City, taking classes at The School of Visual Arts, among other institutions. In 2018, Michele left her job in non-profit development to pursue her painting full time. Michele has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, as well as being selected as a Spotlight Artist recipient at Artexpo New York in 2021. She received “Best In Show” at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, CT in 2019, and had a solo exhibition at the Mattatuck Museum that year. She lives in Connecticut.

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About My Work:

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My current body of work explores my personal history and themes of how our childhood affects our identity and sexuality as we become adults. This work is an exercise in accepting and embracing one's unique experience and individuality. The series of bathers deals with presence, absence and rebirth and what it means for me personally to be a woman at this stage of my life, with my history, and looking towards the future.The flowers speak to me as relationships do. I am engaged by their intricacies, gestures and interplay and feel an urgency to capture that moment before it fades.

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I work with oil paint on canvas. The figures in my current body of work are from personal photographs, the flowers are primarily from my mother's garden. I prefer to work with plants and people that I have some kind of personal connection to. 

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