Michele Pierson

Michele Pierson (b. 1993, Philadelphia, PA) is an artist working primarily in painting, exploring the relationship between inner and outer space through images that move between the material and the immaterial. Grounded in Black feminist frameworks, her work engages themes of reverence, rest, memory, and connection to nature as practices of survival, restoration, and collective care. Through layered, symbolic compositions that draw from dream logic and everyday life, her paintings create contemplative spaces shaped by ritual, reflection, and transformation. Across her practice, she reframes inherited belief systems and positions beauty, care, and healing as personal rituals towards collective liberation.

Michele earned her BA in Studio Art and Art History, magna cum laude, from Spelman College, with additional studies at the University of Ghana and Syracuse University in Florence, Italy. She has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants, including the Black Artist Fellowship (Mural Arts Philadelphia, 2024), Jar of Love Grant (ArtNoir x Sotheby’s, 2023), Forman Family Fellowship at The Alternative Art School (2023), Illuminate the Arts Grant (City of Philadelphia, 2021), and multiple residencies and fellowships with The Alternative Art School and Mural Arts Philadelphia. Her work has been exhibited in recent and upcoming exhibitions at Luster Gallery + Studio (Philadelphia, PA), Rush Arts (Philadelphia, PA), Eckert Gallery (Millersville, PA), Abington Art Center (Jenkintown, PA), Ubuntu Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Woman Made Gallery (Chicago, IL), and Miami Art Week.