Michelle Reid is a Tāmaki based painter, exploring the idea of atmospheres and gardening through a layered material language that incorporates oil paint, pencil, water colour and even the use of a water blaster. Allowing an index of material vocabulary and mark making to arise. Interweaving these explorative methods of mark making with botanical imagery to create a kind of synthesis of material language, that dances between representation and abstraction.
Her current exhibition at Artor Contemporary, A Biome of Hue, continues Reid's exploration of atmospheres. Shifting the gallery space into its own garden-like atmosphere that invites viewers to engage with the work in a slightly different way—installed through the lens of a garden, some paintings hung high, others low to the ground, and one even wrapping around the gallery wall. Inviting viewers to encounter the paintings through this alternative embodied lens.