Michelle Blade
The Very Stars are Justified
2024
Acrylic and ink on poplin
62 x 80 inch / 157.5 x 203 cm
(Photo credit @edmumford)

Dates | April 13 – June 22, 2024
Venue | Main & Ron Collins Gallery, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art
Address | 500 Palm Dr, Novato, CA 94949, USA
Event |
Members’ Preview: April 13 | 1 – 2 pm
Public Opening Reception: April 13 | 2 – 4 pm

Museum Hours |
Wednesday – Friday | 11am to 4pm
Saturday – Sunday | 11am to 5pm

A cross-generational conversation, this three-artist exhibition features writings and images by renowned poet, essayist, and visual artist Etel Adnan (1925-2021), a longtime resident of Marin County, as well as new works by California-based painters Michelle Blade (b. 1981) and Kristy Luck (b. 1985). Shown together for the first time, the three artists share a keen attentiveness to the natural world, a deep interest in color’s emotive power, and a continual exploration of the relationship between place, memory, and the poetic ambiguity of visual expression.

This is Michelle Blade‘s first exhibition at the art museum, where her iconic style will once again be showcased: her use of the medium of poplin, acrylics, and inks, imbuing her works with softness and warmth. Having grown up, studied, and lived in California, the rich landscape variations and natural environments of the region are her ever-present themes for making art. Sometimes featuring powerful swathes of color as backgrounds, sometimes delicately depicting scenery, each stroke of her brush exudes profound emotion. The vitality of both figures and nature evolves and flourishes in their daily interactions and cycles, and Blade’s art is a hymn to this perpetual motion.

Michelle Blade (b. 1981 Los Angeles, CA) has exhibited throughout the world, including Taipei, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Stockholm, London, Tel Aviv, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Blade’s work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review, Juxtapoz, The California Sunday Magazine, and Art Maze. Michelle Blade holds a BA from Loyola Marymount, Los Angeles (2003) and an MFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2008).

Recent exhibitions include Maker of Meaning at Asia Art Center (Taipei) in 2023, with an upcoming solo exhibition scheduled for the fall of 2024 at Asia Art Center in Beijing.