Artist Statement — Michele Renee Gort
Living and working along the shores of Lake Michigan, I am continually drawn to the shifting moods of water, sky, and shoreline. Northern Michigan’s vast horizons, changing weather, and quiet expanses provide both subject and sanctuary for my work. My paintings range from atmospheric landscape paintings to more fully abstract works, yet both are rooted in my response to place. Rather than creating literal depictions of specific locations, I seek to interpret the emotional resonance and sensory experience of the landscape.
The shoreline is a place of convergence—where movement meets stillness and where reflection becomes both visual and internal. In my landscape paintings, traces of horizon, water, and sky remain visible, offering viewers an entry point into familiar terrain. In my abstract paintings, those elements dissolve further, becoming fields of color, gesture, and texture that evoke the feeling of the environment rather than its image. I am particularly interested in how light interacts with water: the way it fractures, softens, or expands across the surface. These observations guide my palette and compositional choices. Blues, warm hues, muted greens, and luminous passages of light emerge through layers of oil, built slowly and intuitively.
My process is physical and responsive. I push, scrape, and rework the paint, allowing traces of gesture and revision to remain visible. Whether working abstractly or within a landscape framework, I believe in letting paint retain its integrity—honoring texture, movement, and the energy of the mark. Over time, the surface develops depth through accumulation, much like the layered rhythms of wind and tide along the lakeshore. Horizon lines often surface in my compositions, not as rigid boundaries but as quiet anchors within expanses of color and motion.
Living in West Michigan, I experience the shoreline as both powerful and restorative. There are days when the lake feels immense and turbulent, and others when it offers stillness and clarity. My paintings—abstract and landscape alike—hold space for both conditions. They invite viewers to move between recognition and interpretation, between seeing a place and feeling it.
For collectors and visitors to the Galleries, I hope the work resonates as a reflection of lake Michigan’s spirit: expansive, contemplative, and deeply connected to water and light. Ultimately, my goal is to create paintings that allow viewers to pause—to experience the openness of the horizon, whether clearly defined or quietly suggested, and to find their own sense of reflection within the work.