Michelle Graham
Brisbane, Queensland
Abstract artist exploring memory, place and change through layered, tactile work. Slow art made by hand, grounded in feeling and lived experience.
MessageMichelle Graham is a Brisbane based abstract artist whose work explores how memory, place and change shape us. Working primarily with a palette knife, she builds layered, tactile surfaces that hold both movement and stillness. Her paintings are not about depicting a landscape, but about what remains of it, the feeling, the shift, the quiet imprint it leaves behind.
Her practice is intuitive and grounded in repetition, with each layer responding to the one beneath it. This slower, deliberate process allows the work to evolve over time, creating depth, tension and moments of release. Colour is used instinctively, often drawn from coastal and rural environments, then softened and reworked into a more internal, emotional register.
Michelle’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Queensland, including her debut solo exhibition Find Your Place. She has been a finalist in various art prizes and her work is held in private collections across Australia and internationally.
Guided by the ethos slow art in a fast world, Michelle creates paintings that feel lived in rather than finished, holding time, memory and a sense of becoming.
Statement
My practice is shaped by physical limitation as much as intention. I work slowly, often in shorter, deliberate sessions, allowing the painting to build over time rather than pushing for immediacy.
This constraint has become part of the work itself. Each layer holds pause, adjustment and return. The paintings sit in that in between space, where change is gradual and meaning accumulates quietly, until the work feels like memory rather than image.
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