Michelle Grabner uses painting to explore her on-going interest in the nature of pattern. Seeing painting ‘as a language in relationship to contexts outside itself’, her works explore this dialogue between the replication of a pattern through painting, and the inherent weft and weave of the fabric upon which the works are created. 

Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1962, Grabner completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1984, a Master of Arts at the University of Wisconsin in 1987, and a Master of Fine Arts at the Northwestern University, Illinois, in 1990. An Associate Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Assistant Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in addition to her art practice, Grabner is also an active curator, having curated the 2016 Portland Biennial and co-curated the 2014 Whitney Biennial. She continues to run The Suburban and The Poor Farm art centres and lives and works in Chicago.