Kelowna 3

Michelle Atkinson is an internationally awarded multidisciplinary artist who creates contemporary artwork based on the environment and humanity’s effect on it. Atkinson earned a graphic design diploma (NMPD’03 with honours) from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Canada with which she has garnered international acclaim and over 30 awards. She was published in Belle Armoire Jewelry magazine (’19) for her copper electroforming work. She is the only person to win the Made in Alberta Awards (Avenue magazine) three times in three categories over three years (’19, ’21, ’22). Recently she obtained grants from both the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (’22) and the Canadian Council for the Arts (’21) for a yearlong installation work at the Leighton Art Centre (’23). Atkinson also donates her time yearly to the Rotary Club of Heritage Park’s Second Chance Art Sale and reclaims broken picture frame glass as part of her practice. Atkinson’s first large-scale permanent public art piece was unveiled as the entrance to the newly designed Wild Canada section of the Calgary Zoo (’23). Her most recent art commission for the Calgary Stampede’s corporate art collection can be found in the newly renovated BMO Centre (’24).

We live with our heads in the clouds—hiding behind filters, trading facts for spectacle. These prints transform raw climate data into soft, luminous forms that first attract the eye, but quietly conceal the disasters beneath.

This series draws from temperature records spanning the McDougall Creek wildfire in British Columbia (August–September 2023). A photograph of stacked wood nods to the hectares of forest lost and the ongoing tensions surrounding logging. Another layer—nearly invisible, glittering plastic—threads through the work, echoing the ever-present but often ignored realities of climate change.

The colours—baby blue, dusty pink, and sage green—soften the weight of the subject, inviting viewers closer. Like the clouds themselves, beauty lingers on the surface, but the truth lies just beyond.