"The Registration Line"
In a world currently so technology and numbers oriented the idea of the human as an individual seems to becoming more abstract of a concept.  I did this small series titled "the registration line" as a short sociological dialogue discussing how individuals who all have a "story"  become a faceless crowd until we look more closely.
 
My work seems to consistently travel along the vein of the universal human experience.  Creating these individuals is what I currently find most interesting in the studio.  Telling a story through human expression
and human emotion by using personification  allows every viewer to intimately and yet differently
relate to these "people". 
 
These paintings reflect a strong emphasis on process.  Paint as color and paint as matter have always been the central theme to my work.  Now these ideas have progressed extraordinarily from wiping and scraping off paint to incorporating sanding. It is through this process the paintings achieve a slickness and a finish which contrasts the worn stained paint below the surface creating a contrasting yet uniform aesthetic.
                                                                                                                                        -- Michele Mikesell, 2008