During her short residency with the Neiman Center in the winter of 2025, Michelle Grabner made a series of screenprints based on cereal and snack boxes found at the local grocery store. Grabner’s flattened boxes possess a Pop Art spirit; however, she purposefully removed the familiar signs and symbols of their branding to focus on their vibrant color and abstract form. Inspired by common objects and everyday textiles, Grabner seeks out repetitive patterns, shapes and forms that she meticulously works and reworks in her paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints. In addition to her screenprints, Grabner also made an etching of a familiar gingham textile yet, in her hands, the prosaic pattern is transformed into a lively, meditative abstraction.

Michelle Grabner (b. 1962, Oshkosh, WI) received her MA in Art History and BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University. She is currently Senior Chair of the Department of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2021, Grabner was awarded the prestigious Fine Arts Guggenheim Fellowship. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University; INOVA, The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Ulrich Museum, Wichita; and University Galleries, Illinois State University. Grabner has been included in major group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Akron Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate St. Ives, UK; and Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland. Her work is included in the permanent collection of museums including the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MO; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Dallas Museum of Art, TX; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN; MUDAM, Luxemburg; Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, WI; Knoxville Museum of Art, TN; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE; Daimler Contemporary, Berlin; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Learn more about this artist:
James Cohan Gallery
Artist website