Michelle Hinebrook
brooklyn, NY
Michelle Hinebrook is a contemporary visionary painter and educator, Brooklyn New York
Message
Michelle Hinebrook is a contemporary NY Painter exploring abstracted representations of the figure, magic, mythology, nature, emotions and spiritual transcendence. Hinebrook’s paintings have been featured in more than 18 solo shows and 50 group exhibitions. Hinebrook’s vibrant oil paintings serve as abstract representations of spiritual and emotional experiences, exploring cosmic consciousness, magic, nature, and spiritual transcendence. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art & Design from the College for Creative Studies.
Her work has been featured in 18 solo exhibitions and over 50 group exhibitions globally and is included in several prestigious public and corporate collections. Including shows at 101 Exhibit Gallery (FL), Hallway Gallery (WA), David Klein Gallery (MI), Foley Gallery (NYC), Helene Nyborg Contemporary (Denmark), FORMah Gallery (NYC), McKenzie Fine Art (NYC), Islip Art Museum (NY), Pratt Manhattan Gallery (NYC), Cranbrook Art Museum (MI), Museum of New Art (MI), and Marlborough Gallery (NYC).
Hinebrook is currently a resident artist at XO Projects in Brooklyn, where she continues to push the boundaries of her mediums. Known for her exploration of mystical, metaphysical, and natural themes. In addition to her studio practice, Michelle curates exhibitions, writes about art, offers art advisory services, and teaches internationally. She is also the director of Artful Edge Academy.
"My paintings are visual meditations on life’s cycles and the unseen forces that shape our existence. To me, nature is sacred and conscious—its patterns and rhythms inspire my work as I explore the relationship between the human spirit and the natural world. Art is my compass to the cosmos."
Statement
My current work investigates the phenomena of subtle-energetic bodies and the unseen forces that flow all around us. I can sense a person’s aura and visualize their emotions and thought forms as symbolic phenomena, flowing shapes, and energetic gestures. My markmaking traces thoughtforms, energy patterns, and the rhythms of nature, drawing from both my personal subconscious and the collective consciousness. I manifest visionary imagery in which the energetic body and its aura appear as fields of thoughtforms, symbols, and memories, with color expressing emotional states. This work is in conversation with the patterns of nature and cosmic cycles. The spaces within my paintings are psychological, populated with anthropomorphized natural forms and metaphysical figures that convey themes of transformation and transcendence.
Composed in layers of oil, acrylic, and pastel, my process is intuitive, balancing control of the materials with their flow, stains, and unpredictable blends. With the canvas on the floor, I pour and guide pigments, observing forms emerge from puddles, stains, and shifting transparencies as a kind of visual scrying. Figures, symbols, flowers, and feminine archetypes surface like memory fragments or dream images. As I work, I open myself to divine connection and messages from the spirit world—a collaboration with my creative spirit guides and art ancestors. Each painting carries a magical, energetic resonance, shaped through ritual, intuition, and dialogue with my materials.
I draw from historical art periods, guided by both conceptual and process-based inspiration from Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, Symbolism, Futurism, Fauvism, and Orphism, as well as artists such as af Klint, Carrington, Tanning, Balla, Rodin, and Frankenthaler. My work blends mythology, religious iconography, and Jungian archetypes into layered forms and luminous energies, translating the subconscious and unseen into my visual language.
For me, painting is not a response—it is a transformative experience, completed in the encounter with the viewer. My research is guided by a deep curiosity about color and energy, the vastness of the universe, vibrational resonance, interconnection with nature, and the unseen realms within and around us. Ultimately, my work is an act of self-realization: a way to trace my soul’s journey, explore my interconnections between body, mind, nature, and cosmos, and to open portals to the unseen.