visit me—
THE WHITE ROOM’s night hawk market
WORCESTER | DECEMBER 6, 5-9pm
MICHELLE MAY — a contemporary expressionist painteR
MAKING ARTwork that draws from NATURE, COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS, TRAVEL AND HISTORY
AN ATTRACTION TO BLUE SPACES—Nature or nurture?
In trying to understand why the ocean keeps tugging at me—and why it so decisively shapes my work—I found chromatic neuroscience. There is science behind the spell. Reflected wavelengths of water hit the human brain when viewed with the subtlety of a mood-altering substance. In fact, vibrant blue water is about as close we mere mortals can get to perceiving ultraviolet light. Not only that, we’re biologically wired to seek water. Our survival instincts and our aesthetic impulses crave the same thing.
Wallace J. Nichols writes in Blue Mind that being near water “improves performance, increases calm, diminishes anxiety, and increases professional success.” Not a bad résumé for a natural resource. More research backs it—apparently, standing in front of the ocean is one of the few times humans unanimously benefit from doing absolutely nothing.
Workin on my COAST series began as a personal recalibration—an urgent search for balance and clarity. Time spent at the shore has always been my internal ballast—the air, the salt, the weather, the history soaked into the land, all of it heightens my senses and recenters me. Childhood summers at our Cape house set the template. Happiness, equilibrium, belonging—they all smelled faintly of salt and seaweed.
My work emerges from the subconscious, that inconveniently honest place where the wild bits of us are stored. Painting this series became a way of letting those interior tides rise to the surface. Blue spaces are my magnets—whether I’m unraveling, celebrating, or simply attempting to exist. The ocean is both medicine and mystery: a place of peace and a place deserving deep reverence. The immensity of it humbles me; its beauty compels me; its danger keeps me honest.
Unplugging by the water is not an indulgence—it is, for me, a spiritual realignment.
A CALL TO ACTION
My hope is that COAST and the rest of my body of work doesn’t simply evoke your own memories of shorelines—it activates something, an action to think and to act.
The climate is changing faster than our collective response. The reef systems I’ve visited, once electric and alive, are bleaching at a pace that feels like a countdown. Each year I return to the water with more urgency, more anxiety, and more determination. Preserving our oceans is no longer a poetic sentiment, it’s a directive that we must face head on.
If these paintings can prompt even one viewer—friend, stranger, art collector, or accidental gallery wanderer—to rethink their relationship to water and take even a small step toward conservation, then the work is doing what it needs to do. The coastline holds so many family memories for many, the question now is whether our human planet is willing to protect the place that shaped us.
Snorkeling Eustastia Reef, Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands, video @captainbvi
Spectrum HEALTH SYSTEMS AcquisitioN
While curating Artists Touched by Addiction, I was compelled to paint, inspired by all the artists stories. As the curator, invested in this project, I felt my own vulnerabilities come forward. We all know people touched by addiction and this hit home for me personally having watched addiction destroy the life of someone I loved. Watching my children lose too many friends to opioids.
Spectrum’s action to assemble a collection of artists who have been touched by addiction is sending ripples of positivity, conversation and healing through the Worcester community. I am very proud to have this painting chosen by Spectrum to hang in the offices of their new building and maybe touch someone that needs a little bit of positive energy.
HUNKY DORY EXHIBITION
“Prisma” will be in a group exhibition, entitled Hunky Dory, curated by Brittany Severance and Eric Nichols. "The Guy, The Girl and The Gilded Goat” will use this exhibition as a backdrop for the film, inspired by a painting in the show.
The American-based Victorian era term “Hunky Dory” describes situations that are pleasant, satisfactory, and something that is going according to plan. Some say it comes from the Dutch words that mean “safe” or “at home.” Over time the term has also become the common name for a blue variety of delphinium. This exhibition explores a diverse range of interpretations of the term through the works of over thirty artists strongly connected to Worcester.
A special note is that the art exhibition will serve as the backdrop for an independent short film called "The Guy, The Girl and The Gilded Goat," which was inspired by the artwork.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Worcester Arts Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
The project is funded by Worcester Arts Council.
MICHELLE MAY IS co-founder of ATELIER ID GLOBAL & juniper Rag
MARKETING SERVICES, ARTist marketing & ACQUISITION CONSULTING
Michelle May and Payal Thiffault are both fine artists and co-founders of Juniper Rag and Atelier ID Global, a design and marketing agency that provides design and digital marketing services worldwide.. They provide residential and corporate art consultations and art procurement services of over a thousand artists who suit a world of tastes, available through our Juniper Rag network.
So, if it is not my art that is suiting your fancy, we have access to so many skilled artists in all genres of visual art. We host and jury over 10 exhibitions a year, virtually and in-person. We also collaborate with organizations and non-profits for curation and fundraising, bridging gaps in your community with art as a catalyst.
