michelle sindha thomas
Michelle Sindha Thomas is a California-based writer and artist whose award-winning work contributes to international collections. She grew up in Chicago's Riverview neighborhood and studied literature, drawing, painting, design, and art history, graduating with a BFA in Studio Art and Art Education. While teaching high school Visual Arts and Language Arts, she earned her MLA at Washington University in St Louis, completed with interdisciplinary analyses of art, film, and literature—culminating in a publication entitled And Others: Pursuit of Individuality in Minority Creative Expression 1984-Present. She is the co-founder of PARALLEL Design and Strategy and specializes in interdisciplinary collaboration—her work engages partners in a variety of fields from energy and technology to music, fashion, and fine art. In January 2023, she opened the doors to a creative community space, Michelle Thomas Fine Art Gallery + Studio. She works in a variety of media and essays themes of memory, place, and identity.
artist's statement
My mother missed her people and her place and so decided to travel during her pregnancy, to leave the US and give birth in India. When I was exactly 30 days old, we flew thousands of miles away from the tropics to a bright, cold, Chicago spring.
The immigrant’s nature moves him. My parents were not of immigrant nature, yet, by chance, by circumstance they landed in the US. Once they landed, it's true, they became movers, shakers, corporate gypsies, but only because they were searching for a fit; they were like puppies, circling, circling, circling, trying to find a comfortable spot in the world for our family. I am not of immigrant nature, though I also keep shifting restlessly. The immigrant seeks opportunity; I look for something that feels like home, a place of heat and a place of cold, I look for people who understand, search for foods that taste like an Indian-Chicagoan childhood, glazed strawberries and marzipan tart, a neighborhood enveloped in the scent of Brach's butterscotch by night. This is why restlessness remains my constant and why I seek to delineate that place, to have what the children of immigrants never really have, a place called HOME.
There exists a place maybe I should call home. At the extremity of a continent, on the tip of a peninsula, there, where I was born, where my parents were born, my grandparents, and their parents were born—Kerala, an enclave of coconut palms and sassy wisecrackers and humble heroes. When we visit, I feel nearly whole; we drink the water the dinosaurs and our great-great-great-great grandparents drank.
The grass is always greener on the other side. I keep forgetting.
I feel most at home in airports. The world is a big house, and the countries are rooms, and we can always go back. And forth.
My watercolor collections represent a sense of place, addressing themes of an identity between cultures in which imagery from childhood, portraits of the melancholic and the joyous and the fearless, cityscapes and earthy vignettes fuse to express my existence and craving for home. Art creates meaning where none previously existed.
exhibitions & awards
selected collections
Hazelwood School District, St Louis; Stange Law Firm, St Louis; The Nail Spa, Oakland; Eden Fitness Studio, San Francisco, C. Wright Nicastro, St Louis; P. Berry, Chicago; R. Wehling, St Louis; A. Rivera, San Francisco; P. Johnson, Oakland; B. Allen, Santa Cruz; J. Dardwhal, Los Altos; B. Rumph, St Louis; C. Alexander, New York City, J. Nunn, Gloucester; K. Amentt, Champaign; A. Rosso, Oakland; R. Erzen, San Miguel; L. Praxedes, São Paolo; A. Thomas, Palm Harbor; N. Thangam, Kochi; C. Sakai, Chicago; S. Lam, San Francisco; S. de Ocampo, Cork; A. Costello, Los Angeles; A. Toscano, San Jose; E. Goldman, St Louis; R. Tanninen, Stockholm, J. Kaslow, St Louis; J. Thomas, Chicago; E. Hull, San Jose; B. Yung, Hilo; F. Finley, St Louis; E. Eslinger, Fremont; F. Reyes, San Francisco; V. Iyer, Mountain View; D. Verghese, Dubai; L. Pica, Malibu; N. Njisang, San Francisco; M. Thomas, New York City; K. Beck, Brooklyn; K. Lawal, Portland; M. Azary, Berkeley, R. Accordino, San Francisco; A.Swink, San Jose; N. Tindal, Oakland; S. Choi Oakland; S. Mesfin, San Francisco; N. Meshack, Oakland; C. Taylor, Jr., Chicago; A. Williams III, San Francisco; L. Reina, Barcelona
selected exhibitions and Presentations
2023-2024: group exhibition, The de Young Open, de Young Museum, San Francisco, California
2023: group exhibition, On Beauty, Michelle Thomas Fine Art, San Francisco, California
2023: group exhibition, Spectrum Gala and Art Auction, Access Institute, San Francisco, California
2023: group exhibition Michelle Thomas Fine Art Inaugural Exhibition, Michelle Thomas Fine Art, San Francisco, California
2022: artist profile article, Mixed Mag, mixedmag.co multimedia magazine
2022: group exhibition, Spectrum Gala and Art Auction, Access Institute, San Francisco, California
2021: group exhibition, Looking out, looking in: an introspective, Alice Gauvin Gallery, Portland, Maine
2021: panel talk, Perspectives from Professionals of Color in Museums and Cultural Institutions, NAEA National Convention, San Francisco, California
2020-2021: group exhibition, The de Young Open, de Young Museum, San Francisco, California
2020: illustrated artist statement, Party of One, Open Space, SFMOMA interdisciplinary publishing platform
2020: solo show, The Sun Babes, San Francisco, California
2018: teaching artist residency, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, California
2014: solo show, Ava's Art & Wine Gala, Mountain View, California
2014: solo show, Sense of Self, University Art, Palo Alto, California
2010-2012: solo show, The Dreamers, Clayton, Missouri
2010: public art commission, Wings in the City, BJC Pediatric Hospice benefit, St Louis, Missouri
2010: solo show, Meneka and the Tricycle, Clayton, Missouri
2010: solo show, Sense of Self, Gallery ADMIN, Florissant, Missouri
2009-2010: solo show, Elephant Eggs, Frontenac, Missouri
2009: solo show, Home, University City, Missouri
2008: group exhibition, Anthology, James Eagan Civic Center, Florissant, Missouri
2007-2008: solo show, Sense of Place, Chesterfield, Missouri
2004: solo show, ABCD, Gallery Visio, St Louis, Missouri
2004: group exhibition, Eclectic Art, University City, Missouri
2002: group exhibition, Cecille R. Hunt Gallery, St Louis, Missouri
2002: group exhibition, Saint Louis Artists’ Guild, St Louis, Missouri
2001: group exhibition, first prize, Washington University Gallery of Art, St Louis, Missouri
2000: group exhibition, Wilfred and Erna Rudolph Prize, St Louis Artists’ Guild, St Louis, Missouri
awards
1997: The Illinois Times literary prize for youth columnists
1998: The National Federation of Press Women’s journalism prize
2001-2004: Bright Flight academic scholarship
2001: Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art at Washington University, Portfolio Competition first prize
2001-2003: Leigh Gerdine School of Art, Design, and Art History at Webster University, academic merit scholarship
2004-2005: Pierre Laclede Honors College, Dennis Bohnenkamp Endowment Scholarship for Excellence in the Humanities
2004: Pierre Laclede Honors College, Annual Writing Award first prize
2004-2005: University of Missouri School of Art and Design, Merle Larkin Art Education Scholarship
2004: Pierre Laclede Honors College, Frederick Fausz Achievement Award
2005: University of Missouri Commencement Ceremony Marshal