KENYA TO LOS ANGELES

ROOTS

Michele Ogilvie was born in Nakuru, Kenya, during the rule of Jomo Kenyatta and the political uprisings against apartheid. She was introduced to a world of racial and economic disparity at an early age. Her mother, born in Antwerp and raised in Brussels, Belgium, experienced the upheavals of World War II. Her father, born in Kenya, was among the first British colonials in East Africa. Michele’s parents began their family in Nairobi, but due to the Mau Mau rebellions and Kenya's political unrest, they immigrated to the United States. These early experiences became a springboard for her existential inquiry, which continues to influence her visual and philosophical aesthetics to this day.

EDUCATION

Michele earned a BA and an MFA in Studio Art, as well as a California Teaching Credential, from California State University. Her professional career includes roles as a graphic designer, special projects art director, illustrator, and fine artist. She has also taught a variety of classes at the secondary and university levels, including Color Theory, Ceramics, 3-D Design, Studio Problems in Teaching Art, Photography, AP Studio Art, Drawing, and Painting.

THE WORK

Michele Ogilvie is a Los Angeles-based expressionist artist who works with fabricated mixed-media narrative constructions, sculpture, ceramics, painting, and drawing. Over the past 30 years, she has created and exhibited artwork that explores existential and humanist concepts such as fate, chance, transience, and loss. Currently, she is most interested in sculpting and carving anthropomorphic and zoomorphic imaginative characters with clay and wood.