Michelle Tanguay

I moved to Detroit from Buffalo, NY at the age of 17 while pursuing my creative aspirations. I studied Fine Art at the College For Creative Studies in Detroit where I discovered my love of oil painting and figure painting, more specifically the female form. My sex-positive feminist ideals quickly became an important theme of my work. My first public exhibition in 2012 at the Redbull House of Art in Detroit featured large scale portraits of women eating candy. The playful, bright, candy-colored portraits featured beautiful women in sexually evocative but seemingly innocent poses. Libidinous by nature, the works at times can elicit a prurient response and have been criticized by some as being obscene, yet create important conversation around the beauty of female sexuality. I continue to create work that reside within the “sweet tooth” series, alongside hundreds of paintings in a wide variety of themes and styles  -- the result of my unquenchable thirst for exploration and perpetual need to create. Today I can be found feverishly working away on countless projects and private commissions in my studio in midtown Detroit. My recent work includes private commissions for Wright&CO, Ashe coffee, Murals in the Market, Complex MI, and Brooklyn Outdoor.  My work was featured in the exhibition 'The Detroiter’ at Heron Arts in San Francisco. My paintings can also be seen on public display throughout the city of Detroit, from a large public outdoor installation on the corner of Main and Washington downtown, to a mural in the historic Eastern Market district.

.