Michelle Cape

About the Artist

Michelle Cape (b. West Monroe, LA) lives and works in Hollywood, MD. She earned her A.A. in Art from Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, NC. She is currently working towards her B.A. in Art at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Cape’s work has been exhibited in North Carolina at Coastal Carolina Community College in The Student Art Show. Her work was also exhibited in The 37th and 38th Annual Public Art Exhibition in Onslow County, NC where in 2015 she received an award of Honorable Mention. Recently, she her work has been exhibited at The 2nd Annual Salon de Refuses and 50th Annual All Student Exhibition at Boyden Gallery in St. Mary’s City, MD which was juried by James Williams II a professor at MICA and Program Director at the Hamiltonian Artist in Washington, D.C. Her works are currently being exhibited in Tango: A Dance Between Duos located on the hall walls of Montgomery Hall on St. Mary’s College of Maryland. 

Artist's Statement

Images of ideal beauty sourced from contemporary fashion magazines collide in unexpected ways to create surreal creatures. Small-scale to life-size portraits of womanly beings adopt poses typical of super-heroes from comic book narratives or characters from mythology. Collaged on the back-side of transparent Plexiglas cut into body-like shapes, the images engage and confront the viewer, giving a sense of looking at a portrait painting on the wall or into a mirror. Titles reference powerful female characters in mythology, such as “Daughter of Themyscira” (Themyscira is the island home of Wonder Woman). The method of cutting and transferring printed reproductions on Plexiglas is purposeful and calls attention to the flat surface of the images themselves. In particular, these layered conglomerations comprised by multiple fashion pictures offer up what is often considered ideal beauty are now transformed into images of unsettling beauty.