About the Artist
Michelle J Straker is a Trinidad-based multidisciplinary visual artist working across painting, textile art and experimental material processes.
Her practice is rooted in curiosity, material exploration and intuitive discovery. Drawing on a background in fashion and textile design, she works with colour, surface, structure and movement, allowing imagery to emerge through the process of making rather than beginning with a fixed figurative composition.
Artist Statement
I approach my work as a process of discovery. I rarely begin with a predetermined figurative composition. Instead, I choose colours, apply paint or work into a material, and allow the surface to suggest what it wants to become.
Figures, beings, animals, architecture, landscapes and other forms can emerge from the abstraction. I may bring some forward while leaving others partially hidden. I am interested in that space between what is immediately visible and what reveals itself through sustained looking.
Research also enters the work as it develops. Constellations, architecture, natural structures and other visual systems may become part of the evolving language of a piece. I want the finished work to retain the evidence of its making and to leave room for viewers to discover their own figures, stories and connections within it.
Artistic / Visual Artist Process
Across painting and textiles, my process combines observation, research and experimentation with a willingness to respond to what the material is doing. Texture, line, colour, movement and transformation connect the different areas of my practice.
Painting Process
My paintings develop intuitively and in layers. I push and move paint with my hands, feet, rulers and other tools, rotate the canvas and work from different orientations. Rather than using abstraction as a background for a planned image, I allow the abstract field itself to generate imagery.
As forms begin to appear, I decide which to strengthen and which to leave ambiguous. A figure or structure may remain only partly visible, so that it feels discovered rather than fully declared. The process continues through a balance of deliberate decisions and responsiveness to accidental marks, textures, colour boundaries and movement already present on the surface.
Textile & Material Process
My textile practice grew from training in fashion, clothing and textile design and continues to shape the way I think about surface and construction. I have worked with freehand machine embroidery, thread, yarn, dyeing, openwork, felt, paper-fabric and material manipulation, treating textile as structure, surface and drawing.
I am interested in what materials can become when they are stitched, layered, cut, dyed, shaped or transformed. The same curiosity that guides my paintings is present here: I work through the material, respond to its behaviour and allow process to generate form.
Full Artist Biography
Michelle J Straker is a Trinidad-based multidisciplinary visual artist and textile designer whose practice moves between painting, textile art and experimental material processes. She studied Fashion and Clothing at Kent Institute of Art & Design before completing a BA in Textile Design at Chelsea College of Art & Design in London, where her practice developed through stitch, surface experimentation and material-led design.
After returning to Trinidad in 2010, Straker continued developing work across textiles and visual art. In 2013 she participated in the exhibition Youth and presented textile work at art and craft fairs. Her textile practice has included freehand machine embroidery, dyed and manipulated surfaces, sculptural accessories and experimental garment construction.
From 2012, Straker was mentored by Trinidadian Master Artist LeRoy Clarke, an important period in the development of her relationship with painting, intuitive image-making and symbolic visual language. Her current painting practice is process-led: colour and marks are established first, canvases may be rotated repeatedly, and figures, beings, architecture, landscapes and other forms are discovered within the developing abstraction.
Across both painting and textile work, Straker is interested in emergence, transformation and the relationship between visible and partially hidden forms. Research into constellations, architecture, natural structures and other systems can enter the work as it evolves. Rather than resolving every image completely, she often leaves space for ambiguity, inviting viewers to look closely and form their own readings of what they encounter.