Michelle Stuart’s Mythologies
Haley Weiss, Interview
February 2016
It’s unsurprising that artist Michelle Stuart held early aspirations of becoming a writer. Her photographic grids, which she has constructed for more than a decade, read like unmoored, surrealist fiction. Images of constellations mix with those of mysterious silhouettes, mushroom clouds, and the tumultuous ocean; tropical landscapes are paired with ships arriving at port and intimate letters exchanged between her parents; archaeological sites, natural specimens, and ethnographic portraits collectively invite an anthropological study. Formatted into a grid, these images form webs of visual mythologies, blending autobiography and collective history. […]