Michelle Sherkow grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is a member of the 2008 graduating class at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in interdisciplinary studies. As a teenager, Sherkow was fortunate enough to travel in the Southwest to study the traditions of native art with various professionals. The influence of spending time on the Navajo reservation is extremely prominent in the visual language Sherkow has developed. Sherkow also spent a significant amount of time working as an administrative assistant to an urban planner. Spending time studying bus routes and pedestrian paths, fed Sherkow’s fascination of using systems to record relationships. Her discovery of maps was further emphasized when Sherkow compared her early circle drawings to Australian Aboriginal dot paintings, which portray dreams in the form of an abstract map of an actual place to tell a story.

An integral part of Sherkow’s studio practice continues to include researching other cultures’ philosophies, experiencing them and making them her own through her work . Starting at MICA as primarily a painter, Sherkow produces photographs which document ritually secludes performances involving systems of mark making on her body. Her honors thus far include receiving a MICA talent grant, a departmental recognition scholarship and dean’s list every semester. Her first exhibition was in the summer of 2007 at Milwaukee’s leading contemporary gallery, Hotcakes, in a two-person show. For this exhibition Sherkow’s art was recognized by MKE Magazine and was chosen as the event to be seen by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s leading art critic, Mary Louise Schumacher.

Sherkow describes her art as being physical actualizations or maps of her personal meditations on life’s various patterns, “I map relationships between limited elements in overlapping patterns as a means of exploring, defining and healing.”

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