Bio
Michelle Mansour is an artist, educator, curator, and the current Executive Director of Root Division, a visual arts non-profit in San Francisco. Mansour is the recipient of an Honorary Fellowship and multiple residencies from Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Her work as been shown in a variety of non-profit and commercial venues such as RB Stevenson Gallery, Bedford Gallery, McLoughlin Gallery, Southern Exposure, Morris Graves Museum, and Yuma Art Center, including solo exhibitions at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery and Latham Square via ProArts. Mansour has work in a variety of collections including Nordstroms, Hilton Hotels, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, and the El Camino Hospital. She has also curated and co-curated several exhibitions including 2x2's at ProArts and Metaphysical Abstraction: Contemporary Approaches to Spiritual Content. Mansour received her MFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute; a BA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University and a Post Baccalaureate degree in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Mansour has given lectures and been on panels with the San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, University of San Francisco, and Sonoma State University.
Based initially on an investigation of the interior world of the body, Mansour's work has become a broader reflection of where science and the metaphysical overlap. The paintings are meticulously crafted by layering translucent washes of acrylic and building up relief surfaces with ink & silicone. Fluctuating between organic fluidity and manipulated surfaces, she uses this combination of techniques to speak about the tension between what we can and cannot control in our own physiology. The process of repeating layer upon layer, mark upon mark, becomes a devotional practice. Strands of cells appear as tissue-like prayer beads – a tactile element for counting countless meditations.