Perched on the Tyrrhenian Sea Painting

Michelle Boerio makes painting and mixed-media art that sparks curiosity and connection with the weird, wonderful parts of the natural world. Some of her newer works take a deeper look at the animals that thrive in vernal pools—small seasonal ponds where many amphibians and insects start life. She loves both the curiosity that inspires learning and the awe of interacting with things we do not fully understand. When painting, she starts with a subject from the real world and stretches it to something more abstract through layers of acrylic, oil paint, and collage. The additive layers of color allow for some parts of the early layers to show through, while others remain obscured. Creating things by hand allows for imperfections and gestural marks to show through, offering clues to the viewer about how each painting was created. She earned a BFA at the Ohio State University with a focus in Painting and Drawing and an MA in Museum Education at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her art is a connection to a universe that is vast, beautiful, precarious, and strange.