Art without boundaries

“Today’s Garden” [Photo courtesy of the artist]

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Posted October 20, 2025 | By JoAnn Guidry

Asking artist Michelle Curry to pick her favorite medium is like asking a parent to choose their favorite child.  A true multi-medium artist, Curry displays her talents in oil, acrylic, watercolor, colored pencils, pastels and graphite. Curry’s work includes landscapes to portraiture to still life. She moves with ease in various disciplines, including realism, impressionism, minimalism, abstract and figurative.

“Over my 40-year plus art career, I have worked at mastering many different mediums, pushing my boundaries to evolve my work,” said Curry, who is the current president of the Ocala Art Group. “Art is communication and sometimes one medium’s expression will be better suited to what I want to convey in a particular piece.”

Born deaf in her left ear, Curry credits this with making her “pay attention and being sensitive to visual details that have played a role in developing my art.”

Curry’s mother was an artist, but it wasn’t she who pointed Curry down her artist’s path.

“My mother was actually a very good artist, and I found that a little intimidating. So, I really didn’t think doing art was for me,” shared Curry, who is originally from Michigan. “But a high school art teacher introduced me to the ebony drawing pencil, and I just loved it. That was the beginning of pursuing art, and I’ve never stopped.”

Curry has associates of art degrees in graphic design and illustration from Kalamazoo (Michigan) Valley College. She also attended the Kalamazoo Institute of Art, becoming a certified art docent.

“While raising my five kids, I worked at various odd jobs like a rural postal delivery person,” said Curry. “Later, I began teaching art classes and found another passion. I love teaching people to discover their art and to feel unlimited in whatever disciplines they want to pursue.”

For the past three years, Curry has taught 10-week fine art classes at the Chelsea Art Center in Ocala.

“My students bring their own supplies and work on their own pieces,” noted Curry. “I encourage them not to be formula artists, but to let their art grow.”

Always a nature lover, Curry finds much inspiration outdoors, with trees often figuring prominently in her work in all mediums. She works from reference photos but, if possible, will indulge in plein air.

“Sometimes I work on one piece at a time and other times, I have several pieces going at once,” said Curry. “I let each piece tell me it’s story in its own time.”

In “My Hiding Place,” a 17-inch by 22-inch mixed-medium work of pastel, pencil and acrylic, a weeping beech tree is portrayed as a sacred space, with light streaming through its branches and leaves. “Today’s Garden,” a 24-inch by 30-inch oil on canvas features a garden of orange, blue and white flowers being overseen by a small little girl statue with her hands on her hips, willing the flowers to bloom.

A golden field and a small tree with a few red autumn leaves are accentuated by a line of Zen rocks in “Random Planning,” a 9-inch by 12-inch colored pencil on paper piece. “The Great Aged Beech,” an 18-inch by 24-inch watercolor on paper, lives up to its name as the grand tree towers upward with garlands of ivy weaving through its branches.

Curry shows her whimsy in the imaginative “Dragonfly Dreams,” a 16-inch by 20-inch acrylic on canvas. The bright blue dragonfly is hovering around a lavender wildflower in a dreamy setting straight out of a children’s book.

“Art isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am,” shared Curry. “Doing my art and teaching art is not a job; it’s a calling for me.”

For more information, go to mcurryarts.com