School of Creative
Industries
Michelle Chee
Michelle has always valued forming relationships through genuine connections. This has driven her to work with different mental health populations in the community.
To integrate Michelle's love for the arts and the knowledge gained from her Master of Social Sciences in Psychology, she pursued an MA Art Therapy degree at LASALLE College of the Arts.
Her time at LASALLE has provided her with opportunities to work with adolescents who have experienced trauma in a community setting, as well as young people and adults with mental health conditions in a medical setting.
Michelle uses art as a means of self-expression and exploration. From a young age, she has enjoyed the sense of relief and freedom that working with watercolours has afforded her. Her artistic practice has since evolved to include a wider range of materials, such as textiles and clay, and focuses on capturing and conveying emotions and experiences.
Work
maybe it’s love, maybe it’s madness
Charcoal, chalk, ink, graphite, xuan paper, tea
70 x 160 cm
(2025)
maybe it’s love, maybe it’s madness is the artist’s impression on parent-child relationships as she explores the interconnectedness between parent and child, while drawing inspiration from the natural environment.
The beginning of the relationship between the mother and infant may be understood as a period of mutualistic symbiosis, and Winnicott (1956) describes this period of primary maternal preoccupation as a form of “madness” developed by a healthy mother.
Madness is explored in the artwork as an accretive form of expression that builds on and develops upon each mark made on the paper. Its incomplete and organic nature honours the mysteriousness that often characterises madness, where much room is left for the exploration of the unknown, and emergence of other possibilities and perspectives.
