Artist Spotlight: Michal Cole

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Michal Cole is a contemporary artist whose work addresses boundaries inherent in both her national culture and chosen artistic mediums. She was born in Haifa, Israel in 1974 to Moroccan parents who had fled to the country for fear of persecution in their home state. She immigrated to London UK in 1997 studying for her BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art followed by an MA Fine Art degree from Chelsea College of Art. 

Cole has exhibited worldwide and continues to receive plaudits for her work. She was winner of the My Art Space Scope Miami competition, the 2011 Signature Art Awards and Saatchi Gallery’s Showdown competition award in London. 

In 2015 Cole exhibited a solo show in Venice and is scheduled for a Venice Biennale collateral exhibition in 2017. She lives and works in London UK.

Cole’s work has a sense of displacement and exile - both internal and external. The division of her life between Eastern and Western cultures emerges through her art, as it exposes the turmoil between her adopted European life and her heritage - the collision of tradition and modernity. Emergent in this examination of cultural conflict, Cole’s art studies the role of women and feminism, in an attempt to expose the absurdity of global inequality.

Bringing modern art with an old master feel, Michal Cole repaints portraits using violent brushstrokes that leave behind only a faint resemblance of the original piece. Cole’s use of rich hues and powerful mark making intensifies the gothic qualities of the original work, reviving the still life subject matter through an added level of dynamic texture. Intense colours and harsh brush strokes are combined together to form the essence of Cole’s work, which often has an ominous spectral feel to it.