About Michele Bonds
Before I worked in carved paper, I worked inside intensely structured worlds where precision, discipline, and clarity were the baseline. Those years taught me to read what lives beneath the surface and to understand how systems reveal themselves under pressure. My studio practice is the natural continuation of that training. The layers are literal now, but the excavation is the same. The work is where structure gives way to intuition and where the deeper story inside the material finally comes into view.
Artist Statement
I create sculptural works in carved and layered paper that explore transformation as an ongoing state. I use excavation as a way to surface the tensions, histories, and connective structures that shape human experience.
Each work is constructed from meticulously layered and pressed papers, then carved with specialized tools that allow me to cut through dense strata of material. This process exposes interior color, texture, and depth and produces complex surfaces that can resemble geological formations, anatomical architectures, or cosmological fields. The physicality of carving and the precision required to navigate the layers form the core of my studio methodology.
My work centers on questions of identity, evolution, and perception. I examine what becomes visible when the interior is revealed, how fragmentation can become a site of coherence, and how abstraction can function as a psychological mirror. These pieces invite sustained viewing and shift with the light, the season, and the emotional state of the observer.
In series such as Cracks in the Temple and Ashes, I work with ideas of ancestry, transformation, and the ongoing dialogue between structure and surrender. The works often feel like vessels for the histories we carry and the ones we are still shaping. Each piece holds both rigor and intuition and offers a material language for the complexities of becoming.
Biography
My path into the studio was shaped as much by curiosity as it was by discipline. I spent years working in law, finance, and executive search, moving through environments where high stakes, long horizons, and complex decision making were the norm. Those experiences gave me a sharp sense for structure, but they also taught me how people change, how pressure reveals character, and how meaning accumulates over time.
Art entered as a place where those insights could take form. What began as a personal exploration became a full shift into a sculptural practice built on layered paper, precision carving, and the study of interior landscapes. The work grew piece by piece, series by series, until it became clear that this was not a departure from my earlier life but a deeper expression of it.
Today my practice brings those threads together. I continue to build work that requires patience, steadiness, and a willingness to sit with complexity, while allowing intuition to lead the final direction. The result is an evolving body of sculptural paper works that reflect the same commitments that shaped my earlier career: clarity, integrity, and a fascination with what lies beneath the surface of a life.
Selected Exhibitions & Highlights
My work has been shown at Art Fair 14C, Superfine, and multiple New York venues including The Art Students League and the 92nd Street Y. In 2025, I spoke at Harvard Divinity School’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, presenting on the making of Cracks in the Temple and the role of transformation in creative practice.
I am currently a resident artist at 14C Arts in Jersey City, where I continue to build the Cracks in the Temple and Ashes series and expand into new methodologies and formats.
Talks
Harvard Divinity School, Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, “The Making of Cracks in the Temple”
Fairs
Art Fair 14C, Jersey City, NJ
Superfine, Brooklyn, NY
Exhibitions
BQE: An Iconography of Queens, LIC Artists, Long Island City
Student Salon exhibitions, The Art Students League, New York
100 Small Works of Hope, We Create NYC
Art Center Student Exhibition, 92nd Street Y, New York
Curriculum Vitae
Contact
For studio visits, commissions, or collector inquiries, reach out anytime.