Michelle Girardello
Based in Brooklyn, NY, artist and photographer Michelle Girardello grapples with what constitutes a home and explores her practice through a process of play, envisioning possible futures for herself.
Negotiations 2019, aluminum dibond print
PP: What does your studio practice look like?
MG: I make miniature domestic sets, and cameras, and little things to photograph. I've got a studio in Gowanus, where you can find me on most Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays playing with all my toys. Much of my practice right now is about connecting with others, so often the work takes me out of the studio. I'm finishing up a miniature version of the interior of a subway car at the moment. This set will become part of the interior of a camera I'm building to take on adventures around the city, getting to know my home more. As I'm learning that home is built out of many things, a connection with space and people and ourselves.
Inventory 2018, pigment print on paper
PP: What do you aim to say through your work?
MG: Being human is hard. I'm sharing my experience as I learn to create my own version of a queer home, self, and family. In my work I'm navigating how to create a future that comes out of a nomadic and painful past. As a child, a fantasy for me was having a happy and healthy home life. These whimsical and fantastical furniture pieces in my work exist outside the confines of trauma. Being able to give these objects autonomy to live outside the bounds of preconceived beliefs of their given role is empowering me to redefine my own home. I hope it also helps others to question and see that there are so many ways to be.
Playful 2022, aluminum dibond print
PP: What is your process for critiquing your own work?
MG: My process is led by play. For the past year or so I have been in the modality of creation. A lot of making without too much thinking, letting my curiosity guide where I'm going. Trusting myself and my capabilities. Make, make, enjoy life, make, read, research, make, then take a step back, look at it all, see what it's saying, listen. See what's necessary, not all work made in this time moves past this stage, and is just appreciated for helping to inform me and the conversation of the work. An important part of the critique process is the dialogue that takes place with my friends and other artists and people in the studio around the work. It helps me to see how it's being read, meeting, missing, or exceeding intentions. These visits are so fruitful, so often we are so deep in our work that it becomes hard to see it clearly, seeing its reflection in others helps to clarify.
Living Room XIII 2019, aluminum dibond print
PP: What challenges have you faced as an artist and how do you overcome them?
MG: Letting my work teach me, not trying to teach it.
In her photographic work, Michelle Girardello discusses the contemporary understanding of home and family. This generation of queers is redefining the traditional notions of family, home, and marriage; we are in a state of in-between. The explorations in her photographs facilitate the creation of her own version of home and self, envisioning possible futures for herself. Through the integration of miniature objects or spaces she confuses the viewer's perception of what they’re looking at, their truth. Michelle Girardello received her MFA in 2019 from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and her BFA from Florida Atlantic University in 2008. In between her studies, she was the Director of the Creative Photography Program (2010-2017) at a competitive arts high school in Miami, FL.
To reach Michelle or learn more about her work, see her instagram and website.