Moth and Monster
By Michelle Silver

Moth and Monster  is a solo exhibition of abstract paintings by Michelle Silver that explore the restless exchange between body and material—a tension between attraction and resistance, vulnerability and power. Like the fragile moth drawn to a force it cannot fully grasp, and the looming monster that both threatens and fascinates, these works navigate the push and pull between creation and destruction, control and surrender.

Each painting is born from an active, physical engagement with paint where the surface becomes both a site of action and a record of it. Layers of pigment are pushed, pulled, and scraped away, revealing traces of the moment-to-moment decisions that shape the work. The physicality of their making is inseparable from their final form; rhythm, tension, and release remain embedded in the marks, as if the motion that made them still hums beneath the surface. In their interplay of density and openness, the works invite viewers to experience painting not as a static object, but as a living residue of movement—an image in the process of becoming.

About the artist

Raised in the Catskill Mountains, Michelle Silver (b. 1987) is a painter, curator and graphic designer living and working in the Hudson Valley, NY. Silver graduated magna cum laude from Boston University in 2009 and in 2023, she co-founded with her tattoo artist husband Distortion Society, where she is currently the Gallery Director. Silver has exhibited throughout the United States and in London and her work is part of the Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection. Her painting and curation have been included in publications including The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Cool Hunting, Times Union, Two Coats of Paint, Art Business News, The Highlands Current, and Chronogram.

For more information on Michele, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.