BIO: Michelle Tommasi is sculptural-painter/drawer formerly of New York City currently living in New Paltz, NY, her home since 2003. Primarily working in graphite and oil on board and paper, where process, experimental and automatic -orientated painting and drawing unite in textured gestures that tend toward the chimerical and suggestive echoes of memory and sound, spirit and nature. Years of various dance methods and energetic healing modality study informs the physical and intuitive execution of her work. She's an honors nominated BFA graduate of the School of Visual Arts and attributes years working at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Tommasi family lineage of ecclesiastical marble sculptors/stonecutters/designers from Pietrasanta (Italy) as her greatest influences.
b. 1969 Yonkers, NY
1991- School of Visual Arts (Honors Nominee)
BFA in Painting/Sculpture
(Study under Marilyn Minter, Lynda Benglis, Lucio Pozzi, Stephen Westfall, Jackie Winsor, Peter Dudek)
2025-2026 Selected Artist- The Canopy Progam with mentor Sharon Butler
Exhibition
March 2021 – 3-Person Show at Greenkill Gallery, Kingston, NY
December 2020 – Group Show: "Abstrakt" at Emerge Gallery, Saugerties, NY
October 2020 – Group Show; International/Juried "Memories" at Gallery 40, Poughkeepsie, NY
2020 – Group Show: "Bianco" at Emerge Gallery, Saugerties, NY
2019 – Group Show: "DREAMS that MONEY can Buy" at Avalanche Art Space, Great Barrington, MA
2018 – Solo Show; First Care Medical Center, New Paltz, NY
2018 – Group Show: "To Love, To Hope, To Tremble, To Live", Dyson Center, Poughkeepsie, NY
2018 – Group Show: "Transitions" at ART Bar, Kingston, NY
2018 – Group Show: "The White Show" at The Storefront Gallery, Kingston, NY
2017 – Group Show: "Print Parade" at Dan Welden, Sag Harbor, NY
2017 – Group Show: "Sol Invictus: Interregnum" at Greenkill Gallery, Kingston, NY
2016 – Group Show: "Sol Invictus" at Greenkill Gallery, Kingston, NY
2009 – Group Show at Unison Art Gallery, New Paltz, NY
Curatorial
2016- Curator at Seven21 Media Center Gallery, Kingston, NY
2016; "Sol Invictus" at Greenkill Gallery, Kingston, NY' (Co-curated)
2017; "Sol Invictus: Interregnum at Greenkill, Kingston, NY (Co-curated)
Theater/Dance/Performance
Various performances and dance studies with: swing dance legend Frankie Manning, Lynn Simonson- Simonson Technique Teaching Certification, West African Dance with Pam & Meemo Camaro, Choreographer:Charlotte Gibbons,
1996- Wrote and directed, "Cigarettes & Alcohol"- Theater 42, NYC
1999- Directed, "Tawny" One Man show with PJ Mehaffey, Cornelia Street Cafe, NYC
2008-2012 Performance artist/Co-organizer B.R.A.W.L (Theatrical fundraising initiative supporting at-risk women causes)
2018- Co-founder Hudson Valley Movement (Dance Collective)
2018-'Charm of Impossibilities", Choreographed by Charlotte Gibbons- BSP Kingston, NY
2019- "X" with Hudson Valley Movement for O+ Festival, Kingston, NY