Michelle Reid

A Biome of Hue

3 - 25 October 2025

ARTOR CONTEMPORARY

12 FITZROY ST, PONSONBY, TĀMAKI MAKAURAU

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We are pleased to present Michelle Reid’s first solo exhibition at Artor Contemporary, on view from 3 - 25 October 2025.

The title A Biome of Hue comes from Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s book Prismatic Ecology. In it, Cohen explores where paint pigments come from, how rivers are shaped by ecological weather systems, and the natural wonder of rainbows creating a fleeting, beautiful moment between the sun, rain, and us. Green has become a key color in this exhibition. Cohen mentions, “It’s not easy being viridescent,” which resonated with me. Green is often associated with romance, pastoral landscapes, purity, and nature itself. Also political movements and sustainability. Lately, my attention has been snagged by the highly saturated aspects of bright green I see in my backyard amongst scattered oxalis, mowed lawns, and soft moss—and at the same time, I’m drawn to the synthetic blue-greens of plastic bags, insecticide pellets, and garden hoses.

I imagine my artworks as painted biomes—or “spaces of mixture,” as Emanuele Coccia describes them—that exist somewhere between the material and the felt-space. These paintings draw on gardening, which I directly relate to around home, and in a metaphorical sense I imagine “gardening” amongst our environmental situation. I have been looking at painted gardens by Fra Angelico (Noli Me Tangere, c.1441) and Bonnard (Summer, 1917), and experimenting with what I call “productive confusions,” where I mix imagery and painting techniques to combine different visual languages and references, creating a kind of synthesis. Throughout painting I wrestle with how much of a hand I should have in shaping forms and eliminating matter, and love to wander amongst the poetics and mess of it all. As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass,

“Gardens are simultaneously a material and spiritual undertaking.”

-Michelle Reid

Michelle Reid Noli Me Tangere, 2025 Pencil and oil on timber 60 x 45 cm

NZD 1,950 Incl.GST Enquire

Michelle Reid is a visual artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, whose practice explores atmospheres through the metaphor of gardening by blending abstraction, organic forms, and materiality, in painting. Her work engages with imperfect landscapes, her relationship with nature under pressure as a resource, and the dynamics of change. Reid’s painting process incorporates a variety of materials and techniques, including watercolours, acrylics and oil painting, water-blasting, printing, staining, and smudging.

Reid holds a Masters of Fine Arts (First Class Honors) from Whitecliffe, where she received an Excellence Scholarship and Top Student Award in 2023, Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Arts (PGDip), Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Ackland, Bachelor of Design (Textiles), Massey University, Wellington.

Reid’s recent exhibitions include Art Fair with Artor 2025, Sanctuary at Sanc Gallery and Green at mothermother during 2024, and she was part of Table with mothermother at the Auckland Art Fair 2023. Her work hasreceived national award placings and is held in contemporary private collections across Auckland.