ARTIST STATEMENT
“She Feels the Cut” is layered with partial figures of nude women; fragments of bodies that refuse erasure. This piece is my response to the ongoing political attacks on bodily autonomy aimed at women and marginalized genders. The fragmentation in the painting mirrors how systems of power seek to divide, censor, and control by reducing identity to parts, never a whole. Yet within that attempt to undo, subtle and overt defiance are rooted in opposition. Each layered form holds a truth, a memory, a knowing that will not be be denied. We are not passive, but present. For me, in this piece, art becomes activism through intimacy, showing what is often hidden—grief, fear, survival and resilience.
This work engages with the exhibition’s theme of political conflict and resistance by asserting the power of the feminine. I wanted the painting to feel unsettled in the same way these times are unsettled. As an artist, my role is not just as a witness, but as a translator of tension into image. She Feels the Cut shows how the personal is always political, and how art documents not only struggle, but a quiet knowledge that endures.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Michelle Louis is a full-time painter based near Madison, Wisconsin. Best known for her process-focused abstracts, her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, and included in corporate and private collections throughout the United States and worldwide, including the National Gallery of Costa Rica. Artist and naturalist trained in studio art, landscape architecture, and graphic design, with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin, Michelle Louis’s studio extends to her yard, where she nurtures an edible landscape.
© Michelle Louis