THOM 9 | Fall / Winter 2017

ARTISTS
cast-off horseshoes from the family farm, hit all the
home notes – a twelve-point stag, foxhounds on the
chase, his trademark horses. His commissions come
from patrons like Lord and Lady Salisbury and the
organizers of the 2012 London Olympics.
Place is just as fundamental to the work of Michelle
Decker. Her larger-than-life paintings of South
African wildlife are the culmination of endless
hours in the bush, where she has sharpened her eye
for the quirks that reveal an animal’s true self – the
flick of a tufted ear, the tilt of a striped head.
It’s all about “finding the common ground
between humans and animals,” Michelle says, and
acknowledging that we share emotions like pride,
fear and longing. With her stark white backdrops
and monochromatic palette, nothing comes between
you and the raw experience of the animal spirit.
During a six-week stint as Artist in Residence at
Studio 209, Michelle turned her artistic eye to the
fauna of Thomasville and environs. That meant
recognizing what is truly wild and even dangerous
in Africa is likely, in the Red Hills region, the product
of careful conservation efforts. Widening her gaze
to our more common critters and expanding her
definition of wildlife towards the domesticated
became its own vocabulary: the squirrel and the
birddog, the Tennessee Walker and the fox as
synonymous with this landscape as lions in the
African bush.
There was something liberating about following
her muse to these unexpected places during her
Studio 209 residency, Michelle says. The impact was
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