michelle jader
For nearly 20 years I worked with professional artists devising marketing campaigns and helping companies launch new products. The truth is, I loved being a marketing consultant. I enjoyed the challenges and the rewards of the business world. But I especially enjoyed working with those talented and creative artists. As my career progressed, I secretly and increasingly imagined a life where I could spend my time creating art that wasn’t subject to unanimous team approval or validated by the number of units moved. I just wanted to create my own art. In the summer of 2007, when the urge to be a full-time artist was too strong, I took the leap and enrolled in the Academy of Art University’s graduate program for fine art painting. For me that was an exhilarating change. One of many moments in my life where I've been in the midst of making an important life decision and felt like I was on the edge of a steep cliff with my only choices being jump, fall, or dive. These critical times of life, whether it's leaving home for the first time, starting or ending a relationship, having a baby, or beginning and ending a job, contain a universal feeling of loss of control, time moving forward, and hurtling through space. My current series explores moments when we willingly and unwillingly dive into the next phase of our lives. I paint on a variety of surfaces and enjoy the process of finding the right support for my concept. My current surfaces are layered acrylic panels. I love the transparent qualities and find it helps me to express movement and emotional release. The concept and panels support one another, and the multiple layers offer this body of work many exciting future possibilities.
