Michelle Danforth
is a multi-media artist born in Buffalo, New York.
She lived in the Netherlands for three years learning
the Dutch language and studying performance and studio
art. She graduated with an M.F.A. degree from
Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2007 and a BFA from
Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington
in 1999.
Her
work experience includes working for the International
House of Blues Foundation, downtown Cleveland, giving
presentations of Folk Art within their community
outreach activities. In addition, she taught
two levels of Life Drawing at the Western Campus
of Cuyahoga Community College as an adjunct as well
as being an Instructor at the Valley Art Center in
Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
Michelle
is the Founding Director for the Maine Studio Center
developing after-school arts programs, lecture series,
film festivals, and other cultural events for Aroostook
County Maine and participated on the NEASC accreditation
committee for New England.
Artist Statement
My work is based
on a broad sense of everyday performances as they
pertain to the idea of acculturated behavior. My
current project looks at how the differences in both
private and public ‘performance’ come
to reflect the moral codes imposed upon women, living
either by choice or by birth, in accordance with religious
doctrine in various regions. I’ve sought to
respond to specific politics of gender that are enacted/performed
on a daily basis through solitary or mutual experiences.
These experiences are accumulated and communicated
within my work as objects that examine a specific
phenomenon of gendered language and gesture. The
objects describe the performative relationships formed
between region and ritual and are an enduring testimony
to the gravity and weight of difference.
