Michelle Wood lives on the North East coast of England and specialises in printmaking.

Michelle has a research-based practice, motivated by her inquisitiveness into how we understand our changing natural environment. She applies her interdisciplinary experience to places that are normally overlooked or left behind.

Michelle Wood closely explores the ‘micro-geographies’ there. Using lenses and by gathering detritus, she discovers things that are ordinarily unnoticed. Michelle responds to place, focusing on ecological and economic change. She reinterprets these transformations into print-based works.

Informed by environmental research and lived experience

Through projects such as Collective Loss, a series of etched and ghost-printed works depicting declining coastal plants in Northumberland, the artist reflects on both ecological and personal loss.

Further works, including Mapping Blakeney, which the artist made and exhibited during the GroundWork Fluid Earth residency in Norfolk, use experimental print processes to mirror natural forces of erosion and renewal.

Informed by environmental research and lived experience, these works consider the instability of mapping, the tension between control and uncertainty, and the resilience and fragilities of coastal ecosystems.

From economic geography to a social enterprise

Michelle has degrees in Fine Art and Economic Geography, with a background as an academic researcher. As a social entrepreneur and art teacher, she led her own social enterprise helping groups, often from disadvantaged backgrounds, to experience creative printmaking activities.

Michelle is currently an Associate Artist with Blue Cabin bringing art to care-experienced young people. This helped with their ethical and socially-aware sourcing policy. They co-created a social impact project that has been shortlisted for an Investors in the Environment award, 2025.

Being involved in the GroundWork artists network would enable Michelle to connect with others involved in ecologically-aware art projects. In addition, she would like to share her knowledge and experience of traditional print processes, which are often seen as declining, by bringing these to new audiences.