ABOUT / CONTACT
After more than four decades of teaching, conducting research and writing about women’s history and women’s and gender studies, I have returned to my first love: making art. It is both humbling and exhilarating to embark on a new career at this stage. I am experimenting with multiple media and materials. My larger works are primarily acrylic on canvas but many include elements of collage. I also make smaller pieces that are primarily collage and assemblage. (My studio is filled with bins of materials—what my husband and kids call “junk”—waiting to be turned into art.)
As a longtime feminist, I might be expected to produce work “with a message,” but in fact very few of my pieces turn out to be overtly political. If anything, I am rather retro, making paintings when many younger artists are focusing on installations, performance pieces, videos, and the like. Moreover, I eagerly embrace the mantle of abstract expressionism, a genre that has been largely superseded but one that I believe has by no means been exhausted, and which I am proud to carry on.
From June 2018 through March 2023, I was a member of Touchstone Gallery in Washington, D.C. I exhibited in monthly group shows and in April, 2022 I had a solo exhibition there, “Seeing My Way.” Here is a video tour: https://fb.watch/cTGciIakXf/
GET IN TOUCH
I'd love to hear from you. Please email me directly at michel.sonya@gmail.com.