Michaela James
Umina Beach, NSW, Australia
Focusing on the beauty that can be found in the most prosaic domesticity - scrutinizing unmonumental objects that we all have in our homes - coffee pots, glasses, fruit, and vegetables, often set against a backdrop of windows looking to the world outside.
Finding that still lives can be anything but still.
The endless possibilities still life offers to explore form, space, light, abstraction, and landscape. These everyday objects morph into something intentionally more complex, no longer still lives, but very much alive.
"everyday immanence"
Michaela James Solo
You don’t need grandeur to find beauty. You don’t need to escape to find meaning. It’s right there, in your own life and your own surroundings. Because ordinary things, transformed through painting, can become something much more. That transformation—that moment where the mundane becomes something interesting—that’s what I’m always chasing.
Everything—objects, space, background—blends together on one surface, where any part can connect to any other. I try to listen to what the everyday already tells me—not painting what something is, but what it does, how it feels, how it changes. I see it as a reflection on how the ordinary can hold rich, shifting possibilities, and how painting can reveal that.
My focus is on painting familiar, often-overlooked objects—cups, fruit, light through glass—not to elevate them, but let everything coexist without hierarchy, continuously forming and informing in relation to one another.
This project continues my exploration of immanence: the idea that meaning and affect are already embedded in the material world.
Exhibtion closed, unsold work can be purchased at Bloomfield Fine Art Gallery
Shop 5/6 Campbell Crescent
Terrigal NSW 2260
Central Coast Artist of the Year 2025
I am thrilled and grateful to have won the Central Coast Artist of the year 2025 with the painting "Umina Still Dreaming of a Larger Life", and am now represented by Bloomfield Fine Art Gallery.
Exhibitions
Central Coast Artist of the Year, Bloomfield Fine Art Gallery
Lane Cove Art prize, Gallery Lane Cove
Opening night
The Patience of Ordinary Things, Gang Gang Gallery
Opening afternoon
Comminisci…, ellipsis gallery
opening night
Gang Gang Gallery
The Patience of Ordinary Things
2025
- Connections - Gosford Regional Gallery
- Second Anniversary Group Show, Bloomfield Fine Art Gallery
- Small Scale Art Award, Salon des Refusés, Lethbridge Gallery,
- Finalist Central Coast Artist of the Year - Bloomfield Fine Art Gallery
- Comminisci…to invent, contrive, devise – ellipsis gallery
2024
- The Patience of Ordinary Things – Gang Gang Gallery
- Finalist Lane Cove Art Prize - Gallery Lane Cove
- 5 Lands Walk Connections Art Exhibition – Avoca
- Two Feet Forward – ellipsis gallery, Woolloomooloo
2023
- Finding our way to hereThe Public Gallery, Umina Beach
- Collabor8 Prize (inaugural) – ellipsis gallery, Woolloomooloo
- Visual Encounters– Gosford Regional Gallery
2022
- Through my eyes catalogue - Gosford Regional Gallery
- Finalist Gosford Art Prize
2021
- Creation in Isolation – The Entrance Gallery
2020
- Linden Postcard Show - Linden New Art, St Kilda
- Make Your Mark - The Makers Studio Gosford Regional Gallery and Edogawa Commemorative Garden
2019
- For Love of Country, Gloucester Art Gallery December
- VERVE, Waterline Gallery, Ettalong
- Colour and Light, Waterline Gallery, Ettalong
2018
- Albert Park College Show, Port Melbourne
- Arts in the Valley, Kangaroo Valley, Catalogue
- Little Things, Saint Cloche Gallery, Paddington, Catalogue
- Nietzsche and the Dionysian, Peter Durno Murray. Book cover painting
- Nature Morte, the Shop Gallery, Glebe with Liz Chow
2017
- Little Things, Saint Cloche Gallery, Paddington
- “room” the Shop Gallery, Glebe with Sue Rintoul Lalor and Lisa Hoelzl
- The Camberwell Art Show, Camberwell
2016
- “Earth Shift” the Bakehouse, Marrickville, part of MOST
(Marrickville Open Studio Trail). - http://wonderbookofpoetry.org/
- Project 365+1 - Invited guest artist for May. A poem-centric collaboration of artists and writers taking place daily throughout
- Arts in the Valley Exhibition - Kangaroo Valley
- Gala Day Exhibition, Clifton School of Arts, Clifton
1994
- Kaleidescope", Women’s College, University of Sydney
- "Home", Roys Famous, Sydney
1995
- "The Comic in Art" Tin Sheds, University of Sydney
- "Crosstalk: works involving sound", Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney
1993
- "New Works", Burnie St Gallery, Sydney
- Global fax art exhibition, The Custard Factory, Birmingham
- Group Show, Burnie St. Gallery, Sydney
1992-1986
- Works held on commission at Burnie St Gallery, Sydney
- Group Show, Burnie St Gallery, Sydney
- Painting, Poets, Portables, Kelly Street Kollectiv
- "Aliens Ate Billy", Group Show, Rondeau Gallery, Sydney
- Group Show, Kelly Street Kollectiv, Sydney
- Solo Show, Balmain Loft Gallery, Sydney
- Post Graduate Students of City Art Institute, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney
Prizes
- 2025: Central Coast Artist of the Year
- 2024: New Artist Up and Coming
- 1995: Noel Chettle Prize for Painting and Drawing, University of Sydney
ADDRESS
Darkinjung land, Umina Beach, 2257
ABN: 56549259381
© 2026 Michaela James. All images on this site are copyright protected. Reuse requires a licence. Unauthorised use is prohibited.