Artwork > Michele Ratté

Vernal Heart #1
Mixed Media
23 x 17.5"
2014
Vernal Heart #2
Mixed Media
22 x 17"
2014
Vernal Heart #4
Mixed Media
24 x 18.5"
2014
Vernal Heart #5
Mixed Media
24 x 18.5"
2014
Frog
2024
Paths
2024
Floris
2023
Michelle Ratté, breath garden, woman artist, belfast, printmaker, collograph
Collograph
2019
Michelle Ratté, breath garden, woman artist, belfast, printmaker, collograph
Collograph
2019
Michelle Ratté, breath garden, woman artist, belfast, printmaker, collograph with chine colle
Collograph with Chine Colle
2020
Michelle Ratté, breath garden, woman artist, belfast, printmaker, collograph with chine colle
Collograph with Chine Colle
2019

In the last several years many of us have experienced personal upheaval in one way or another -huge disruptions, tragedy, and adaptation. In my case my family was propelled, among other things, to move and make a new home in Maine, in order to be near dear friends, and by the ocean. I left a beloved studio in Vermont, but found a new community and studio in Belfast. The process of making these major shifts has brought about a parallel shift in my work.

For many years I worked on non-representational *collagraphic prints based on research and observation of fossils at a preserved ocean reef in northern Vermont. My interest focused on geological artifacts and a growing awareness of eons of extinction events. This work is an homage to our earliest living, breathing ancestors, and to my geologist father.

After moving to seaside Maine I had vivid dreams of present-day animals and plants. I began to draw them and use them in my work. It was like opening a new door, accessing new rooms- perhaps a door I’d walked by many times.

Concurrently I began dismantling previous work, some finished, some unfinished- much of it made using a unique gold printmaking process I developed with an inventing partner. It has been like shopping in my former work, taking it apart, re-imagining it, and re-assembling it in ways that have meaning for me now. - Michele Ratté