Michelle
Cherian
Media:
Painting
Studio Location:
43-39 21st St , Long Island City, NY 11101
Room/Studio#
205
Website:
Artist Bio:
Michelle Cherian is a New York-based painter whose abstract work explores the psychological and mythic layers of feminine experience. Her canvases and works on paper often begin with instinctive gestures and layered color, evolving through a discovery-first process that prioritizes emotion, tension, and symbolism. Drawing from research into archetypes, fairytales, and historical narratives—particularly the erasure and resistance of powerful women—her paintings build a world where internal conflict and transformation are made visible.
Before returning to painting, Michelle spent years working as a strategist in tech and almost launched an incubator for women tech founders. Supporting women-led ventures continues to shape her work in the world. Her current body of work is rooted in personal initiation and collective inheritance—where beasts, foremothers, and inner figures emerge to guide and disrupt. Michelle works out of her studio in Long Island City, where she continues to expand her mythic universe one painting at a time.
Artist Statement:
My paintings are mythic investigations of personal and collective histories, especially that of our wild feminine nature. I work between abstraction, figuration and landscape. Each piece begins with a seed: a shape, a feeling, a piece of research or an archetype. I follow where it leads through color, mark-making and story evolution — often wrestling with the tension between the resulting picture and original inspiration.
My current body of work explores initiations that force us to confront where we’ve been holding ourselves back. Although much of my work is inspired by personal stories, they are also part of the collective. These newer paintings move through themes of one’s shadow, resistance, ancestral guidance, and personal power.
My studio practice starts with research, but the intuitive force leads the way. I draw on research of the witchhunts, fairytales and psychological archetypes from myths and dream exploration. I’m interested in making visible and bringing light to the way we process emotionally and psychologically.
