Biography
Michaela Wheater is an artist and educator born in West Yorkshire and now living and working in London. She received a B. A. Hons Degree in Fine Art from Portsmouth Polytechnic and an Art Teachers Certificate from Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. In her professional career she has taught art at secondary school level for over 25 years. As an artist she has worked in many mediums, currently developing work in print and working out of Kew Studio and Richmond Art School.
Michaela has exhibited her work in many group exhibitions including ‘Bite’ at the Mall Galleries and as part of the touring ‘8th British International Mini Print Exhibition’. She has presented her work at art fairs and in Pop Up Print Exhibitions and her work can be seen at open studios at Kew Studio.
Selected group exhibitions in 2018 include:
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Seacourt International Mini Print Biennial, Seacourt Print Workshop, Northern Ireland.
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Visually Literate 2, Menier Gallery, London.
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PrintFest7, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Kent.
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RBSA Print Prize, RBSA Gallery, Birmingham.
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10th Flourish Award, West Yorkshire Print Workshop, Mirfield, West Yorkshire.
Artist's Statement
My work is primarily concerned with the passage of time. The notion of fragility, tangible traces of the past and of fleeting moments captured as memory. I am interested in the ordinary evidence of human life: objects and places imbued with a sense of the personal. Whilst at the same time also being moved to memorialize what is lost.
Work comprises of a number of open series’ that seek to examine these concepts. Images evidence human interference with and traces left upon artifacts and places such as worn shoes, shaped to fit their owner, lost toys that convey signs of a past relationship or places that hold powerful memories. Memento Mori explores the transience of life through images of sleep, dreams and the cataloguing and memorializing of incidents of death that are often disregarded. Through the process of making the dolls head series the heads have become powerful metaphors for ourselves: Our relationships and experiences.
While principally a printmaker I use a variety of materials and processes in my work. I am interested in the inherent characteristics of different print processes and am keen to experiment with how they might help construct narrative. The process of making a print allows me to build up images as layers, responding to the work as it evolves.