Michelle Rahbar

Michelle Rahbar is a visual artist based in Austin,Texas, who grew up amongst factories and railroad yards on the shores of Lake Michigan. After receiving her BFA in Painting & Drawing from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, she moved to Austin and has since exhibited across Texas in select curated exhibitions. Her work has appeared in national art publications and been acquired for both private and public art collections. She is also a contributing member of Bolm Arts Collective.

Rahbar makes curiously strange mixed media paintings that connect with the viewer on an emotional level. Her work focuses on how loss reshapes you, how we reframe the idea of home throughout our lives and how past trauma can be cultivated into strength and beauty. She strives to make work that’s slow to reveal itself through layered stories. According to scientists, our first two decades seem to pass as slowly as the rest of our lives, so that our early experiences carry vastly more psychic weight than those of adulthood. If this is true then all the landscapes, whispers, and meteor showers she’s witnessed have left their indelible mark on her work.