Michele Carlson

Bio

Michele Carlson is an artist who uses creative strategies to interrogate systems of power and legacies of racialization. She is a visual artist, writer, educator, and facilitator-of-all-the-things (from conversations to publications to the occasional curatorial project). Her work interrogates how systems of power are created and endured, while also considering how creative imagining and action can refuse or reform those same systems.

Carlson fostered her multidisciplinary practice in her undergraduate studies at the University of Washington where she received a B.F.A. in Printmaking, B.A. in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts, and B.A. in History. Her making and writing practice was further developed at the California College of the Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area where she earned an M.F.A. in Printmaking and M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies.

At times her visual work is speculative, using imaginative strategies to explore how humans collect and impact one another—this part of her practice often takes the form of works on paper and has been exhibited and supported nationally. As a writer, Carlson engages many forms of writing to think through how expressions of visual and material culture reflect the lived experience of diverse social groups. Her critical writings focusing on art and culture have been published by Art in America, KQED, and Afterimage along with numerous exhibition catalog essays and book chapters. She is currently working on a hybrid memoir titled The Visits, which examines the way kinship and family are constructed set against the visual culture of incarceration. This project has recently been supported by the Maryland State Arts Council, the San Leandro Arts Council, and Montalvo Center for the Arts.

Her broader practice demonstrates a commitment to amplifying underrepresented voices through curatorial practice, editorial/publishing work, and leadership positions. From 2016-19 Carlson was the Executive Director of Art Practical, a west coast arts media organization that produced art writing, books, events, and podcasts about contemporary art. And from 2011-2016 she served in different roles on the editorial and leadership teams, including Editor-in-Chief, of Hyphen, a media outlet for Asian American culture and politics.

She is a founding member of Related Tactics, an artistic collective that makes art at the intersection of race and culture. Related Tactics prioritizes consensus strategies required to meaningfully engage the relational work of social change and movement building. Lately their work together has focused on the way that artists of colors negotiate and reimagine fraught histories of racialized labor and nation in the United States. Their work spans many forms from photography and expanded printmaking to conversations and space-making. Related Tactics’ projects have recently been supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Ruth Arts, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the University of Hawaii-Manoa, Southern Exposure (San Francisco), the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and Mills College Art Museum. 

Exhibitions

As an artist, Carlson's visual work has been exhibited nationally at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Korean Cultural Center LA, Cerasoli Gallery LA, and Kearny Street Workshop. She has received residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Kala Art Institute, and Montalvo Center for the Arts.

Publications

Carlson's critical writings on art and culture can be found in numerous publications including KQED, Art in America, Hyphen, and Afterimage. She is currently working on a manuscript titled The Visits, which examines the way kinship and family are constructed set against the backdrop of incarceration and transnational adoption. This project was recently supported by the San Leandro Arts Commission individual artist grants.