Michelle Hanlin is a Sydney based artist working predominantly in painting. Her work whimsically dissects frameworks of conventional art subject matter and genres like the bust, portrait and still-life. Michelle has been exhibiting since 1999 and her work has been seen extensively in galleries across Sydney as well as in Melbourne and Hobart. This is her fourth solo exhibition at Gallery 9.

This new series of paintings depict the nature of heredity, ancestry and descent. They appear as portraits in that they depict a head and shoulders however in place of the facial features are changing colour, shape and patterns. These works refer to portrait paintings of the Renaissance and as well as old photographic portraits taken the studio with a backdrop. It is as though the ‘people’ are paintings and the paintings are ‘people’.

The static, staged portrait is a constant throughout the series which begins with two paintings that the other paintings ‘descend’ from. Each painting refers to and reflects some of the ‘features’ of the first two paintings such as colour, shape, pattern or painterly effect. As the series continues, some features may be lost, while new ones appear.

Michelle Hanlin graduated from Sydney College of the Arts in 2003, and she was a finalist in the Helen Lempriere prize in 2004. Her work is in the collection of Artbank, Wollongong City Gallery and private collections around Australia.