Michelle O'Connell is a multidisciplinary artist and colorist working across painting, video installation, film, and photography. She holds an MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College and a BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. From 2007 to 2011, she lived in China, where she earned a certificate in the Chinese Art and Language Program at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.
Michelle’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, Russia, and China. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Wassaic Project and was awarded the Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Painting Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center.
She has collaborated on interdisciplinary projects with the musical trio Tablatun, members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. As a colorist, her film credits include the documentaries The Children of Izquierdo, The Revolution of Plastic, and Naomi Replansky at 100. Her recent video work Meditations on Mountains was featured in the International Biennale of Ecological Art in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.
Originally based in New York City, Michelle now lives and works in Denver, Colorado.
MICHELLE O'CONNELL
b. Flemington, New Jersey
Lives in Denver, CO
EXHIBITIONS
2025
International Biennale of Ecological Art: The Skin of the Earth, The Ermolaevs via Triumph Gallery, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
2021
Third Nature, Empty Set Gallery, Bronx, NY
Transcendence, Local Project Art Space, Long Island City, NY
2020
November 2nd, M Street Gallery, Jersey City, NJ
Millbrook Review, New Vernon, NJ
Drawings in a Time of Social Distancing, online exhibition by LIC-A, New York, NY
2019
Survey Dover Plains, 5 Harts Productions, Dover Plains, NY
Sun Sounds, Babycastles, New York, NY
2018
Here and There, New York and Shenzhen, 205 Hudson Gallery, New York, NY
Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition, 205 Hudson Gallery, New York, NY
2017
Drawing Out, 80 WSE Performance Festival, New York, NY
2015
Over the Bridge, Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY
We Are Queens, Falchi Building, Long Island City, NY
Winter Salon, Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2014
Winter Secrets, Local Project Gallery, Long Island City, NY
Citi Bank Group Show, Citi Bank Building, Long Island City, NY
2013
Guilin, I will be forever grateful., LIC Arts Open, Modern Spaces, Long Island City, NY
10x10, Reis Studios Gallery, Long Island City, NY
2010
China Landscapes, Milton’s Place Gallery, Guilin, China
2009
Travels Through China, Backstreet Gallery, Guilin, China
2007
International Arts Juried Exhibition, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China
Celebrating Zhejiang, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Big, Red, Portable, and Digital, collaborative installation, MICA, Baltimore, MD
Transcendent Tabla, Guitar, and Didgeridoo, collaborative project, MICA, Baltimore, MD
2006
Inter/Arts Concert Lab Exhibition and Performance, collaboration with musicians from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Brown Center, Baltimore, MD
Transient Modern Landscape, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD
Visual Music, Lyric Opera House, Baltimore, MD
2005
The Seven Doors of Bluebeard’s Castle, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Baltimore, MD
Teacher Fly-In, MICA, Baltimore, MD
2004
Settings and Sources, Goucher College, Towson, MD
Ferocious Beauty: The Human Genome Project, collaboration with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Falvey Hall, MICA, Baltimore, MD
FILM CREDITS
The Children of Izquierdo - 2022 - colorist
The Revolution of Plastic - 2020 - colorist
Naomi Replansky at 100 - 2020 - colorist
Got Film? - 2020 - colorist
RESIDENCIES
Vermont Studio Center
Wassaic Project
PRESS
Guilin Evening News, Inside the Picture There is Another Story, August 10, 2009
Baltimore City Paper, Inter/Arts Concert Lab with Members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Vol. 30 No. 48, 2006
AWARDS
Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Painting Fellowship; Third place in the juried exhibition Celebrating Zhejiang; Selected finalist for the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Travel Grant; MICA Painting Recognition Award; Nora and Eugene Leake Scholarship in Painting; John J. Leidy Foundation Scholarship; Alumni Association Scholarship, National Art Honor Society Scholarship, Presidential Scholarship