Michelle Dalton is a Mixed Media Artist from Cork City, Ireland. Born 15/02/1989. She has been creating art since a young age and practicing professionally since her early twenties. She owns her own studio in West Cork and is also a member of Over The Line Studios/Gallery in Cork City.
Her work is driven by the exploration of all and everyone. Meaning she likes to work outside the convention of narrowing herself to one theme or style. She is an intensely curious person, interested in exploring the many complexities of the human experience and the natural world. Combining that passion with the materials she uses she wants to illustrate the importance of skill within the traditional realms of painting and drawing. Then hopefully transcend the traditional by being diverse in her visual storytelling.
Recently she exhibited her new solo show DISCOMFORT in the Mezzanine Gallery, in St. Peters Church in Cork City. The exhibition was funded by the Irish Arts Council's Agility Award. The opening night had a huge reception with many people experiencing visceral bodily reactions to the work including tears, laughter, shock and awe but mostly thankful for how emotionally honest the work was.
A wonderful and unusual response considering Visual Art is silent in nature but a testament to the powerful content of the Artwork which explored Irelands uncomfortable history of Asylums. Exploring personal and historical experiences.
4,600 people attended the exhibition solely on word of mouth. The public’s response to the show was beyond Michelle’s expectations. With many people describing the exhibition as one of “The most honest, powerful and emotional display of Artwork, they have ever seen”
Here is a quote from Dr Lydia Sapouna’s of University Colleges Cork speech on the opening night...
“I am really honoured to be asked my Michelle to open this exhibition. I am here as a friend of Michelle’s, an academic and activist who, with others, is trying to make space for broader understandings of human experience. Today was the first day of the CVNI conference that Harry and I have been organising for the past 15 years and it’s great that we are again linked with the launch of Michelle’s work, the first one being 10 years ago…
Throughout the years we have worked Michelle as part of the CVNI, hearing voices network… there is a common thread of our collaborations: shared value base, thinking creatively and respectfully about human experiences of distress. We are pursuing it through conferences, education and activism, Michelle through powerful art.
Michelle is quite unique in the way she explores places. She has spent hours in our Lady’s asylum, wandering corridors, collecting artefacts, parts of people’s stories and she brings those into life through her art. She brings parts of her own life into her art (bed, medical notes). So, she makes art to speak about things that can not be captured with words: Violation, abuse, lost voices and by doing that she validates stories that have been lost. She pays attention to detail which in many ways counteracts the blanket treatment of people as diagnostic categories. But this is only one way of looking at the detail of Michelle’s art. There is certainly much more to it.
She uses mixed and various media, she definitely works outside conventions to tell a story, on this occasion stories that generate discomfort. Interestingly I spoke earlier about discomfort as a very valuable feeling (synchronicity!!), Being unsettled and uncomfortable is a driving force for change, if abuse, injustice and privilege don’t make us uncomfortable there is really no motivation to change. Discomfort is a motivator for change.
Michelle says that ‘This exhibition is for every single person lost and forgotten about behind Asylum walls. Our history, a very uncomfortable one’. And perhaps this story continues, and people continue to get lost and forgotten in systems that fail to treat them as human beings. Not necessarily Victorian asylums but contemporary systems that don’t recognise the complexity and depth of human experience. That don’t pay attention to the detail. So, we need to remain uncomfortable to learn, as Michelle says, ‘to treat each other better as humans’. I am grateful to Michelle for the beauty of the uncomfortable art and all we can learn from
In 2024 Michelle is working a new project which will be a total departure from previous work where the visual will not be the main focus. Michelle’s first true love is Music as well as having a love of words, particularly songs and poetry. This passion has long been neglected. As for years in the background and privately Michelle has experimented with Music Production, strange noises, messing around with her Fender Telecaster as well as lots of singing. She is not at the moment interested in the public performance aspect of these practices but rather wants to spend more time using her Studio to create new and original landscapes of sounds, combined with her own singing voice, learning new instruments and merging sounds with visuals. This will take a while to complete, as she has to learn many new skills to pursue her new ideas. She is both nervous and excited about this new Artistic journey. In the meantime she will be making a book with all the Artwork from DISCOMFORT included in it as well as Poetry, Photography and unseen Artwork. Hopefully this will be complete and published in 2025.
Photographs of Artist by Darren Cheshire Sophia Felumaz Santabarba and Murphy Kie
