Michelle Kaufman

Michelle Kaufman works in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She received her BA in Economics from Bryn Mawr College, PA, in 1986. After Kaufman worked in the business world for fifteen years, she boarded the plane that took off one hour before the 9/11 plane that went down in Pittsburgh. When the pilot abruptly notified the passengers that they were landing in Lincoln, Nebraska due to a “national emergency” -  she thought the world had ended—for her world stood still as she learned she could not communicate with her office, family or friends.  Five years after that flight, she studied Art at Hunter College, NY.

Patterns of growth and decline documented in the world’s history fascinate Kaufman. She reads historical documents and literature on World System Theory, debt, slavery, war, revolution, collapse, financial systems, complexity, philosophy, disease, and prehistoric man. She is investigating how during periods of decline and crisis violence increases: David Hackett Fischer argues in The Great Wave that we have been in a period of global crisis since 1980 which is not yet over. Thus, Kaufman questions what role violence will or should play in our contemporary lives. Kaufman attempts to delve into the economics and history of violence through further reading of micro issues involved such as monetary policy in China from 1000 to 1700 AD.

In her recent body of work, Autocatalytic, she works with text: one piece was formatted like a word collage, one like a word sculpture, one like a puzzle on mirror, one like a Merriam Webster on line dictionary web page, one like an epicurious.com web page, a few as deskilled text on paper, one was made of bloody vitamins, and one as Styrofoam cutouts, pasted on a wall.

Kaufman approaches an idea with no set technique and plans to experiment with motion and film in the future. She develops artwork about our past and future state of being by meditating on her reading before configuring form. She draws, paints, writes, photographs and films to expose critical commentary and postulate. Disfiguration not only mimics her surrounding but submerges her sub-context in her context in which she discovers it. From formal painting to text-based works, Kaufman speaks to the viewer by assessing society’s role in humanity’s progress.

Contact Kaufman at her website.

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