Jack Michael
Drawing/Painting & Printmaking
Artist’s Statement
My work studies the dynamics of utopian longing, ambition, and failure using the form of the flag as a portmanteau for meaning and possibility. Since 2019, I have structured my work around the Associated States of Neocadia (ASN), a fictional country of my own invention. The Manual for Neocadia – beyond being an exhibition – is a detailed handbook for citizens of the ASN. My works are manifestations of the manual’s lessons, designs, and directives. Through the detailed creation of this utopian society, I address my personal failings and anxieties in an attempt to build a better version of myself, my history, and simultaneously of the world.
Hometown
Chickamauga, GA
Jack Michael is an interdisciplinary artist whose work studies the dynamics of utopian longing, ambition, and failure. Her work is broadly autobiographical, deeply sociopolitical, and rooted in global history, contemporary politics, and literary fiction. Her practice spans media ranging from traditional printmaking, drawing, painting, and quilting methods to social sculpture, motorcycle-based endurance performance, and mixed-media monuments.
Since 2019, Michael’s studio practice has been organized around a living work of fiction—The Manual for Neocadia—which is a detailed handbook for citizens of the Associated States of Neocadia (ASN), a republic of her own imagining. Her works are manifestations of the manual’s lessons, designs, and directives. Through the detailed creation of this feminist utopian society, she addresses her own personal/historical failings in an attempt to build a better version of herself, her history, and, simultaneously, of the world.
Michael earned her B.A. in Art from Sewanee: The University of the South where she focused on alternative photographic processes and sculpture. She is currently a 3rd-year M.F.A. candidate at Georgia State University where she teaches Printmaking and Foundations courses. Michael structures her classes around strong 2D design, experimental 3D techniques, and critical reading and writing across the course curriculum.
Jack Michael’s recent accolades include a transnational weaving on the U.S.-Mexico border fence; teaching residencies in the U.S. and abroad; a solo show at the Ionion Center for Arts & Culture in Kefalonia, Greece; a nomination for the Dedalus Foundation M.F.A. Fellowship; numerous group shows; national curatorial projects; and grants and awards for international residencies and research initiatives.
Undergrad
B.A. cum laude in Art at Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee, TN (2010)
