
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2019
Bronze and black marble
17 x 7 x 7 in
43.2 x 17.8 x 17.8 cm
JCG11202
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2019
Bronze and black marble
18 x 8 x 8 in
45.7 x 20.3 x 20.3 cm
JCG11199
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2019
Bronze and black marble
19 1/2 x 7 x 7 in
49.5 x 17.8 x 17.8 cm
JCG11201
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2018
Iron
36 x 36 in.
91.4 x 91.4 cm
JCG9871
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2018
Iron
40 x 40 in.
101.6 x 101.6 cm
JCG9872
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2017-2018
Oil on burlap over panel
37 1/4 x 45 in.
94.6 x 114.3 cm
JCG9661
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2017-2018
Oil on burlap over panel
29 x 35 1/4 in.
73.7 x 89.5 cm
JCG9659
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2017
Graphite and black gesso on canvas
Notes:
108 inches diameter
JCG9008
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2017
Bronze, unique, with Indiana limestone base
52 1/2 x 26 x 18 in.
133.4 x 66 x 45.7 cm
JCG9321
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2016
Bronze, unique
74 x 44 x 24 3/4 in.
188 x 111.8 x 62.9 cm
JCG8845
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2016
Bronze, unique, with Indiana limestone base
64 x 34 x 24 in.
162.6 x 86.4 x 61 cm
JCG8841
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2016
Bronze, unique
24 1/2 x 15 x 10 in.
62.2 x 38.1 x 25.4 cm
JCG8880
MICHELLE GRABNER,
Untitled
2016
Oil and gesso on burlap and panel
90 x 120 in.
228.6 x 304.8 cm
JCG8519
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2016
Bronze
25 1/4 x 12 x 8 in.
64.1 x 30.48 x 20.3 cm
JCG8524
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2016
Oil and gesso on burlap and panel
90 x 120 in.
228.6 x 304.8 cm
JCG8520
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Weaving Life Into Art
2015
Installation view Indianapolis Museum of Art
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2015
Oil on burlpa over panel
41 x 31 in.
104.1 x 78.7 cm
JCG8081
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014-15
Enamel on panel
40 x 40 in.
101.6 x 101.6 cm
JCG7708
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014
Enamel on panel
11 1/4 x 12 1/2 in.
28.6 x 31.8 cm
JCG7329
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014
Flash and black gesso on canvas
Diameter: 80 in.
203.2 cm
JCG7194
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014
Archival inkjet print
48 x 32 in.
121.9 x 81 cm
JCG7371
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014
Archival inkjet print
48 x 32 in.
121.9 x 81 cm
JCG7376
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014
Archival inkjet print
48 x 32 in.
121.9 x 81 cm
JCG7403
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014
Enamel on panel
60 x 60 x 1 1/2 in.
152.4 x 152.4 x 3.8 cm
JCG7382
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014
Enamel on panel 14 x 16 in.
35.6 x 40.6 cm
JCG7330
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2014
Enamel on panel
60 x 60 in.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
JCG7706
MICHELLE GRABNER AND BRAD KILLAM
Oyster #8
2014
Silverpoint on panel, oil and canvas
Diameter: 60 in.
152.4 cm
JCG7417
MICHELLE GRABNER AND BRAD KILLAM
Oyster #5
2013-14
Wood, galvanized steel, flashe on panel, fabric on panel, silver and gesso on panel, framed type c print, oil on canvas, enamel on aluminum, oiled wood, various fasteners
98 x 96 x 6 in.
248.9 x 243.8 x 15.2 cm
JCG6882
MICHELLE GRABNER AND BRAD KILLAM
Oyster #5
2013-14
Wood, galvanized steel, flashe on panel, fabric on panel, silver and gesso on panel, framed type c print, oil on canvas, enamel on aluminum, oiled wood, various fasteners
98 x 96 x 6 in.
248.9 x 243.8 x 15.2 cm
JCG6882
MICHELLE GRABNER
I Work From Home
2013
Installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
MICHELLE GRABNER
I Work From Home
2013
Installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
MICHELLE GRABNER
I Work From Home
2013
Installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
MICHELLE GRABNER
I Work From Home
2013
Installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
MICHELLE GRABNER
I Work From Home
2013
Installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
MICHELLE GRABNER
I Work From Home
2013
Installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
MICHELLE GRABNER
I Work From Home
2013
Installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
MICHELLE GRABNER
I Work From Home
2013
Installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2013
Flashe on panel
14 x 11 in.
35.6 x 27.9 cm
JCG6809
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2013
Flashe on panel
12 x 9 in.
30.5 x 22.9 cm
JCG6755
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2013
Fabric and gesso on panel
11 3/4 x 9 3/4 in.
29.8 x 24.8 cm
JCG6754
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2011
Silverpoint and black gesso on canvas
40 x 30 in.
101.6 x 76.2 cm
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
2010
Silverpoint on panel
16 x 12 in.
40.6 x 30.5 cm
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
1999
Enamel on Medex board
32 x 34 in.
81.3 x 86.4 cm
JCG6760
MICHELLE GRABNER
Untitled
1999
Flock on canvas
36 x 36 in.
91.4 x 91.4 cm
JCG7413
The Wisconsin-born and based artist Michelle Grabner is known for her broad perspective developed as teacher, writer and critic over the past 30 years. The site where it all comes together is the studio. Her artmaking—which encompasses a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, video and sculpture—is driven by a distinctive value in the productivity of work and takes place outside of dominant systems. Grabner instead finds a creative center in operating across platforms and towards community.
Central to the work is process. Grabner uncovers new dynamic relationships through her visionary practice of repetition. With a deep attention to abstract patterns and all the metaphors they conjure, Grabner pushes the limits of compositional structures to discover the tipping point between stability and precariousness; between continuance and wondrous difference.
Grabner states of her work,“I have always been a painter who examines various power structures inherent in patterns and abstract arrangements. Because I believe that all forms are political, I have committed myself and 30 years of painting to re-articulating vernacular patterns in order to shift the unobserved into critical sight. This general overview has been foundational to my studio work since 1990.”
Michelle Grabner (b. 1962, Oshkosh, WI) received her MA in Art History and BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University. She is currently Senior Chair of the Department of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was a Core Critic at Yale University in the Department of Painting and Printmaking from 2011 to 2014. She returned to Yale in 2020 as a Visiting Artist. A regular contributor to Artforum, her writing has also appeared in publications including Art in America, Frieze, Modern Painters, and Art-Agenda. Grabner co-curated the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art along with Anthony Elms and Stuart Comer, and served as the inaugural artistic director of FRONT International, a triennial exhibition in Cleveland, OH and the vicinity that ran from July through September of 2018. She is also the founder and co-director of two non-profit art spaces in Wisconsin, The Suburban and The Poor Farm, with her husband, artist Brad Killam.
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI recently commissioned Grabner to create an artist-built environment for their new Art Preserve building. This public project is slated to open in June 2021. Grabner has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University; INOVA, The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Ulrich Museum, Wichita; and University Galleries, Illinois State University. She has been included in major group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Akron Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate St. Ives, UK; and Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland. Her work is included in the permanent collection of museums including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MO; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Dallas Museum of Art, TX; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN; MUDAM, Luxemburg; Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, WI; Knoxville Museum of Art, TN; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE; Daimler Contemporary, Berlin; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Grabner lives and works in Milwaukee.