Michelle Carnes Art

Influenced by the memories of growing up in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood, Michelle Carnes is a daughter of immigrants who escaped the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Latvia. Michelle studied formal figure drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago at the age of 11, and went on to pursue a degree in Visual Communications from the Art Institute of Colorado. Coming full circle, she returned to her origins, and earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Michelle's motivation to create is formed by the silent spaces of emotion, exploring the chaotic terrain of the moments in-between the conscious and subconscious. She evolves the experience of being a female creative through her interest in people, ego, persona, and the life force of individuality. Although she has been formerly trained to capture a physical likeness of a subject in a classic sense, she looks beneath the skin to find a personal vitality, capturing the abstract energies that surround a spirit of purpose which leads the viewer to complete the connection.