Michelle Blade
Michelle Blade
MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is very pleased to present the work of Los Angeles–based painter Michelle Blade, whose work examines time, memory, and the persistence of the natural world through intimate, autobiographical subjects.
A third-generation Angeleno, Blade draws inspiration from Southern California landscapes, domestic interiors, and the everyday experiences of motherhood. Gardens, desert paths, domestic spaces, and interactions with her daughters serve as sites for exploring care, continuity, and the cyclical nature of life.
A Salutary Spring
Gliding through the verdant
mess of tangled beauty,
the limb of time refuses
The vase precedes the compost
With the bedroom door cracked,
two horned owls call out in the blackness
discussing, considering, offering
The halftime show on the tv
echoes down the hall
As the wave-like din of a party rises and falls
God bless America(s)!
The present, unaware
of its solidarity with yes and no
attempts to sketch evolution.
Dormant seeds
already shedding their introversion,
stretch spellbound, towards conviction.
A dry crunch of a sycamore leaf
and the dog’s face presses into the screen.
Somewhere between restless and lazy
I too breathe in the smell of the damp
warm brick and night blooming jasmine
Mimicking, learning
She devoutly believes
In the infinitude of beauty
Spring is no sleep walker
The Artist
Los Angeles, 1981. Lives and works in Michelle Blade (b. 1981, Los Angeles) is a Los Angeles-based painter whose work examines time, memory, and the persistence of the natural world through intimate, autobiographical subjects. A third-generation Angeleno, Blade draws inspiration from Southern California landscapes, domestic interiors, and the everyday experiences of motherhood. Gardens, desert paths, domestic spaces, and interactions with her daughters serve as sites for exploring care, continuity, and the cyclical nature of life.
Working primarily with a wet-on-wet technique, Blade approaches painting as a durational and intuitive process. She revisits figures and landscapes over time, allowing meaning to develop through repetition and reflection. Using acrylic and ink on cotton poplin, she creates translucent surfaces where figuration and abstraction coexist. Figures emerge and recede within these spaces, integrated with their surroundings and representing universal states rather than individual likenesses. Their gestures convey moments of transition, vulnerability, and resilience.
Color functions as both a formal and expressive element, structuring compositions while conveying emotional resonance. Blade’s work emphasizes observation, attentiveness, and the interrelationship between humans and the natural world. Motherhood and the environment are central to her practice, approached not as subjects to control but as relationships to sustain. Critics have described this approach as a “maternal sublime,” in which care and attention become central forms of meaning.
Blade has presented solo exhibitions at Powerlong Museum (Shanghai), Asia Art Center (Beijing), Asia Art Center (Taipei), Loyal (Stockholm), Micki Meng (San Francisco), Wilding Cran (Los Angeles) and held group exhibitions at Marin MOCA (San Rafael, CA), Loyal (Stockholm), Loyal at El Royale (Los Angeles), Blum & Poe (Los Angeles), Simon Lee Gallery (London), The Bonnefanten Museum (Maastricht), Nassima Landau Foundation (Tel Aviv), Ju Ming Museum (New Taipei City), Xinjiang Art Museum (Urumqi, China), K11 MUSEA (Shanghai), WOAW Gallery (Hong Kong), The Torrance Art Museum, The Center for Contemporary Arts (Santa Fe), and Rachel Uffner (NYC)..