Artist Focus: Michele Usibelli

Painter Michele Usibelli began her career in architecture after graduating from the from the University of Washington. It was this demanding professional life and later travel that laid the foundation that would eventually become her art career.

The Golden Hour, oil, 18 x 36 in.

Usibelli’s early training established a strong foundation in the Russian Impressionist tradition of seeing and painting shapes of light and color using relatively loose, confident brushstrokes. She has studied extensively and been deeply influenced by historic masters, most notably Nicholai Fechin, John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase. These classical influences have allowed her to establish her own unique artistic voice and define her as a truly versatile modern impressionist.

Today she gravitates toward many genres, including still life, landscape, cityscape and figurative work, with an individual style that includes rich impasto and technical paint application that creates a constant, harmonious theme throughout her extensive body of work. Working primarily in oils—but equally accomplished in acrylics, gouache, and watercolor—she strives for an unmistakable consistency.

Where Loyalty Runs Deep, oil, 20 x 16 in.

“For me, the process of creating begins with a scene that carries a certain energy and evokes an emotion,” she says. “I find myself drawn to subject matter with rich colors or intriguing light—the vignettes of everyday life. It is my primary goal to have each artwork resonate with energy and the poetry of light. I follow my own ‘rule’ of painting what is truly important to me. There is nothing more gratifying than knowing that my work is appreciated by others. —