ARTIST: MICHELLE SOSLAU
Art Histories are highly curated presentations of an artists’ life’s work provided for appreciators today, scholars of tomorrow, and generations to come.
Michelle Soslau's career as a visual artist and art educator included an extensive exhibition record and faculty positions with museum, college, and community programs. To date, Soslau has had ten solo exhibitions in the Philadelphia/Central New Jersey area including the Ellarslie Museum in Trenton, NJ, the Cerulean Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, Artist House, a Philadelphia gallery known for featuring graduates of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) from where Soslau holds an MFA. Her work has been included in over twenty juried exhibitions and reviewed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Princeton Weekly Newspaper, and Packet on Line.
In addition to the inclusion of her work in private collections along the East coast of the United States, Soslau's work is also included in the corporate collections of the Bell Atlantic Telephone Company and the Safeguard Corporation in Wayne, PA and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Print Collection. Soslau served on the faculty of the Guggenheim Museum's Learning Through Art Program, Women's Studio Workshop in New York, La Salle University, Holy Family College, and the Philadelphia Cultural Program. In addition to earning her MFA from PAFA, Michelle studied for several years at the Barnes Foundation courtesy of the Violet de Mazia Trust and earned a BFA from Arcadia University and an MS in Education at the NY State University at Brockport.
“It is through these narratives and formal investigations that I am expressing my thoughts on social issues and reflections on personal experiences. ”
COLLECTION: BOATS
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Artist Statement
The content of my work is autobiographical with a concentration on social injustice. Figures are often held in place by atmospheric abstraction. Painting is my means of communicating what can not be expressed in any other medium. When closely considered, the subjects reveal themselves and can raise our consciousness and understanding. It is through these narratives and formal investigations that I am expressing my thoughts on social issues and reflections on personal experiences.
Creating in an intuitive manner, I have continually explored four motifs: The Falling Men, The Mourners, Boats, and I and Thou. Addressing the emotional, personal, and political, these series are subtly intertwined. The Falling Men series is a response to 9-11 and has now grown into representations of social justice and the insidious racism we are experiencing. The Mourners was inspired by a Courbet painting seen many years ago, which I later incorporated into my reflections on a family member falling ill. The Lady in I and Thou appears in my work pointing to issues of poverty and aloneness, issues especially salient in our times. My Boats series offers a metaphor for my own journey through life.
I was always struck by the expansive structure of old European church ceilings with its functional ribs sliding up the curved sides, meeting on the ceiling, supporting the roof. If you visualize the ceiling upside down, the ceiling is the same formal structure as a boat, with its ribs meeting at the base of the boat. While I am not certain why this became a point of departure for me, it has serviced me well. I have used many images of boats to show a conveyance of time and in some cases a memory. As a metaphor, boats travel back and forth carrying the stuff of living, then emptied out and return for another journey.
Collection: The MOURNERS
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Collection: NEW WORK 2023
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Collection: I and THOU
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Artist Statement
The series title, I and Thou, is inspired by the book of the same name by Martin Buber that suggests humans create meaning through relationships with others. Consciously, I elevate the Lady’s status by painting her as subject matter into more well-known and beloved historical paintings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Inspired by Impressionists Édouard Manet and Mary Cassatt, I paint the Lady into beautiful, peaceful, paintings of modern life in the late 1800s. Like contemporary painter Celia Paul, I explore the ideas of memory, family, and the inner lives of women. This series quietly asks, can we appreciate beauty as well as contradiction? How do individuals make a meaningful impression through time and history? How can we look at modern life and not see the unfortunate consequences of what that modernity has produced?
Collection: FALLING MEN
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Collection: BOXES
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Collection: DRAWINGS
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Collection: PAINT ON PAPER
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PRESS
Artist Michelle Soslau, The Bag Lady Series
Click the video to watch the full segment featuring Michelle Soslau
Video and interview by John Thornton
Highlights Include:
An Artist's Journey
Solo exhibition Video at Cerulean Gallery in Philadelphia
Video by John Thornton
Alumni artists show their work
Written by John Fey
© Michelle Soslau, Ocean Pearl of Light, Collage and acrylic on board, 15 x 30 inches, 2017
Diane Podolsky Blog
Featured Guest Artist: Michelle Soslau
Written by Diane Podolsky
© Michelle Soslau, Saying Goodbye to My Buddy, Oil on canvas, 14 x 11 inches, 2020
Looking At the Work of Joan Mitchell and Mark Rothko
An online conversation with artist and teacher Michelle Soslau who compare and contrast the works of artistic trailblazers Joan Mitchell and Mark Rothko.
Video by The Plastic Club
© Michelle Soslau, Two Boats, Oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches, 2015
To acquire artwork from Michelle Soslau’s collection, email info@amiepotsicartadvisory.com.
Click here to download Michelle Soslau’s CV.
To learn more about the artist: https://michellesoslau.artspan.com/.
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