Maya Angelou said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Michelle Baharier’s exhibition – How Do I Make You Feel – explores this narrative. In her body of work, she invites the viewer to gaze at her brilliantly coloured faces, encouraging us to reflect on our own emotional situations.
Her art addresses our unconscious bias and stigma towards diversity and variety, which of course Michelle says ‘is the spice of life’.
At her exhibition we come face to face with Miss Havisham in her wedding dress, from the Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations. We also meet a Cat between the beach and the sea, or is it on a Ukrainian flag?
We are introduced to Medusa and we come face to face with Baroness Jane Campbell of Surbiton, who has, out of necessity, broken down barriers that she and others face, some due to disability discrimination and prejudice.
Her powerful painting of Sue Elsegood with Astronauts says it all, we can put a human on the moon, but we can’t make accessible public transport. Michelle’s vibrant paintings are filled with symbols to tell the story.
The exhibition also includes Michelle’s portrait paintings commissioned by Disability Arts Online in 2021, and her ‘Walkie-Talkie project,’ of digital collages, exploring people’s experiences of using buses, focussed on physical and mental accessibility. The project was funded by Arts Council England and is also permanently housed at the London Transport Museum and Disability Arts Online YouTube channel.
This will be an exceptional, not to be missed free exhibition, by one of South London’s most prominent women Artists, and who wouldn’t want to commission her to paint your portrait, with such colour and symbolism, she brings her sitters to life.
Michelle has a disability and has campaigned all her life to break down barriers and end stigma. She is also the chair of South London Women Artists.
She is known for founding CoolTan Arts, an Arts and mental health charity, famous for its Largactyl Shuffle Walks of which she was the co-founder. Baharier ran Midnight Walks that took audience on a vivacious live performance of myth and fact, from the power house to the mad house.
Michelle is a graduate from the Slade School of Fine Art, Exeter College of Art & Design and an exchange student at Hochschule für Bildende, Künste Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The Artist is available for workshops and talks.
A Place For Change, The Foundry, Vauxhall – 17 Oval Way, Vauxhall, London SE11 5RR from 12 March – 1 June 2023, Monday – Friday 8.30am – 6pm. Admission: Free.
