Michelle Ramalho is an artist living and working in Toronto, who strives to represent the complexity of human relationships and social inequalities through multilayered mixed media pieces.

This series considers the negative long-term effects of individualism in the Western World. For instance, the inculcation and exacerbation of greed, and the general lackadaisical attitude toward global issues.

Specifically, this series explores the extremity of poverty with consideration of the mundanity and rush of the western world--which often propagates a generalized indifference to such scenes. These images are layered each other; fighting for attention, and yet, lend substance to one another.

The tableaux are multilayered to acknowledge fact that no instance or experience can truly exist in isolation. Indeed, we often experience ongoing, or very recent moments as a singular event, while instead, they ultimately conjoin in our individual memories, and in our collective cultural archive creating a web of interlocked events, information, opinions, and emotions. As such, even events we all experience alone are ultimately consolidated within our individual consciousness\' --forming something larger.

Essentially, Ramalho\'s work examines the relationship (if any?) and division (if any?) between areas of acute scarcity and those of plenty. Existing in the former, people struggle to meet their basic human needs, and yet, underpinning that hardship there often exists a connection to other people and a beauty in life; while existing in the latter, people often express a longing for connection with others.

Underpinning everything, is Ramalho questioning an individual\'s responsibility to the world, while considering that the notion of individualism demands primary care to the self.

Ramalho is a recent graduate of the Centennial College Fine Art program, and holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Waterloo.

All images and text © the artist