Artist Statement

Michelle Daly was raised in a small Vermont town, constantly creating and looking for adventure, she packed a car and moved west in 1999. First settling in Olympia WA, she moved to Portland in 2001. A 2006 BFA graduate of Marylhurst University, Michelle has exhibited work in several group and juried exhibitions around Portland, OR and Los Angeles, CA.

Michelle creates abstract oil paintings that explore unconventional narrative and storytelling. Using abstraction and the process of painting as a metaphor for how we experience life and the interconnectedness of human beings both to one another and to the world around them, Michelle tells stories that don't have easy words and often ambiguous conclusions.

Michelle says she is "trying to strip experiences and stories to that one moment that says everything in a way that is part personal, part metaphor, part stand in for the universal themes (mostly of love and romance and everything that goes along with that)" in a way that is simultaneously refreshingly honest and stripped of sentimentality, as well as unapologetically beautiful.