​Biography

Michelle Palatnik is a New York-based figurative painter whose work explores emotional architecture, interiority, and the tension between presence and absence. Her paintings aim to render psychological states with formal clarity and atmospheric restraint.

She was awarded a four-year scholarship to New York University by Elizabeth Murray and won first place in painting from the Martin Wong Foundation. While at NYU, she studied with Maureen Gallace and Ross Bleckner. She continued her training at the Art Students League with Sharon Sprung and at the Grand Central Atelier under Jacob Collins, Colleen Barry, and Will St. John.

Michelle’s work has been exhibited in Manhattan, Long Island, and internationally in Poly International’s first American Contemporary Art auction in China. She received the Richard C. Pionk Memorial Award at the Salmagundi Club and was selected as a copyist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she studied Rembrandt’s self-portraiture.
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She is currently pursuing her MFA at the New York Academy of Art, where her research and practice focus on the psychological dimensions of representation. Her current work engages themes of alienation, intimacy, and the limits of visibility in an increasingly performative culture.

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