Michele Sabatier is a Portland-based artist working mainly in encaustic, the art of painting with pigmented molten beeswax. Born in Virginia from family origins in the rice fields of Cajun SW Louisiana, she uses a variety of media to make both abstract and objective landscapes. Inspired by the vast flatness of the alluvial planes of Mississippi Delta, and by the enveloping intimacy of the Pacific Northwest forests, her painting evoke a strong sense of place. Her art is currently represented at Gallery 408 in Camas, WA, and at Artistic Portland Gallery in NE Portland. She maintains a private studio in SW Portland where she offers private workshops and instruction. Michele has a BFA in textile design from the School of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, and an MA in curriculum design from the University of Mississippi, where she also taught English in critical-needs schools.
"I make intimate portraits of immense imaginary spaces. Working mainly through the medium of encaustic painting, I use the metaphor of landscape to find relationships with time and space outside of everyday experience, and to create a strong and abiding sense of place. To me, every painting or drawing is a landscape - capturing and recording the internal or external context of experience. Because our memories of time and place are more than visual snapshots, my work tends to be intuitive and sense-memory based. It's crucial to my process that the product exist as a function of the medium. My encaustic paintings, especially, incorporate the specific qualities of the medium - elements of chance created by the torch, the movement of the wax while it's in its molten state - as a part of the final image." |
Media: Encaustic | Fiber & Fabric | Printmaking
Studio Number: 96
Address: 4609 SW Stephenson St Portland OR 97219
Community: SW Portland
Accessibility: Not Wheelchair accessible (uneven terrain on slight slope to back yard)
Email: hello@msabatier.com
Website: msabatier.com
Instagram: @michelesabatier
