About Artist

Michelle Jones is a Professional Artist, who is self- described as an Urban Expressionist. Michelle was born and raised not far from New Orleans, Louisiana before relocating to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2001, where she currently resides. Growing up Michelle struggled with depression, low self-esteem and the desire to go unseen and unnoticed by the world at large. But she says "God had a different plan for me". She began her career as a self-taught makeup artist to build her own esteem, and spent hours learning the craft. Michelle began to build clientele even before attending Faces of MN, LLC Multi Media Makeup School, where she became a Credentialed Muti Media Makeup Artist in 2013. It wasn’t until 2019 when Michelle was in her late 30’s that she discovered her affinity for drawing and painting. Additionally, 2020 gave her some time to pause, as it did for many of us, and consider what was next for her. It was during this time that she found herself painting and creating. “I was grieving that year, the racial divide, the pandemic, all the death and the political climate at the time was more than I could handle mentally, spiritually and emotionally. I had no outlet, I had been forced to close my makeup business due to the pandemic so art, painting and creating, became my solace”, she recalls. Michelle spent a lot of time on YouTube trying to learn different techniques as she didn’t possess any natural talent for the craft. That research lead her to the Milan Art Institute. Michelle purchased some of the courses offered and was very pleased with her progress. She had the opportunity to join MAI’s Mastery Program in 2021, she went through an intensive course that taught her the foundations of drawing, oil painting and expressive mixed media exploration. She was able to find her unique, artistic voice and produce a portfolio before ultimately learning to market herself as a Professional Artist and Brand. 

"It was the search and discovery of my authentic self that freed me enough to explore art. It was that work that allowed me to find the pride in my shame, uniqueness in my personal monotony." Michelle shared. However, the discovery of Michelle's artistic voice frightened her. "When I allowed my art to naturally reveal itself, it truly scared me. I felt so exposed, like my art was putting my business on blast!", she states, laughing. It was like all that intimate work that I'd done on myself and for myself, was now on canvas for the world to see.. which of course caused me to begin questioning myself again. Will my art be perceived as biased? Who's going to want to live with this art? Is my art boxing me in, am I excluding Collectors? It was torture but there was no denying, it was me." Michelle says of her portfolio, "My portraits are far from realistic, they are representational at best", she says with laughter. But it's the neon colors, the high contrast, the obviously blocked in shapes, the drips and splattered paint.. that's life. Perfection defined by the imperfection! I want to depict the unique beauty that is Urban Life. My Art is meant to Affirm!”

In the future, Michelle plans to continue building skill and hopes to explore abstract art more in depth as she wants to create an urban abstract line of decorative art inspired by her artistic voice. Michelle will be hosting her first solo exhibition in 2022, where she will display the portfolio she created during the Mastery program. Her ultimate goal is to continue creating “Art that Affirms” the urban culture and community.