PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
the artist bio
Michela Mansuino 571 263-7696 [email protected] www.mansuino.com
Michela Mansuino is a figurative oil painter. Her work centers around contemporary realism. Born in Rio de Janeiro, 1961; raised in Virginia, USA.
Michela Mansuino is an artist whose studio is located in Center City, Philadelphia.
Growing up in a Washington D.C. suburb called McLean, Michela was surrounded by the cultural atmosphere of her parents, classical musicians who played in the National Symphony Orchestra. Her quest for visual art was ignited during a field trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, where she saw Thomas Cole's paintings of "The Voyage of Life." At 10 years of age, she enrolled in the Corcoran School of Art Saturday youth program, where she studied ceramics and figure drawing for six years. During the summers, she studied with Master fresco Painter Otello Chiti in Siena, who emphasized the importance of drawing and used the cast to teach form. Classical music and the traditional representation of form in painting formed her aesthetic preferences in painting. Since then, she has had numerous studios in different parts of the world, including Philadelphia, San Gimignano, Florence, and Recife Brazil.
Michela's passion for painting led her to pursue a BFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, where she studied under remarkable professors Roger Anliker and Charles Schmidt. After completing her undergraduate studies, she received permission to copy masterworks in museums throughout Europe, including the Louvre, the Prado, Uffizi, and the National Gallery in London. She then established residence in Florence, Italy, to pursue studies in art history and plein air landscape painting.
Michela's love for plein air painting was shared by her mentor Otello Chiti, who introduced her to San Gimignano and the surrounding Tuscan countryside. Michela found it easy to move about and set up her easel in Tuscany, where she made lifelong friends. Painting landscapes ultimately impacted her ability to compose large figurative compositions. Over a four year period, Michela produced paintings of the Tuscan countryside that culminated in her solo show at Gallery K, in Washington, D.C., and in Siena, Italy.
After her time in Italy, Michela sought refuge from the harsh northern hemisphere winters and settled in her native Brazil, in 2000, where she continued to produce her plein air art in a tropical setting. She began her career as an art instructor at the American School of Recife, where she created the ceramics department and collaborated with local artists to develop and strengthen the program. Her passion for expanding her expertise led her to the Baroque era, where she found her calling in figure and portrait painting.
From 2017, Michela honed her craft at Studio Incamminati, a contemporary humanist realism school modeled after the 1562 Bolognese school. She graduated with a diploma of achievement, followed up by taking a teaching role in the humanist realist program at Studio Incamminati and at the same time a youth program instructor at the Arts of Great Falls, school of art in Virginia, a program she created.
Michela has exhibited and sold through museums and galleries in the United States, Italy, and Brazil. Her self-portrait was featured on the cover of Elan Magazine in 2025, and in 2021 the National Liberty Museum showcased her painting “The Freedom Of Youth”
Her art has won numerous awards and accolades, including first prize in national and regional competitions and honorable mentions in both sculpture and painting from the Portrait Society of America. She has been a finalist in the Annual Art Renewal Center’s International Salon, The International Guild of Realism and The Almenara Art Prize annual salons. Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine featured her still life painting “Still Life With Raffaello” in its July 2022 issue. In 2024, three of Michela’s life size figure paintings were selected as finalists in the Almenara Art Prize online salon. She was recognized with the Vincenzo Palumbo artisan award through the Italian Cultural Society in Washington, D.C. She currently exhibits and sells her paintings in the greater Washington Metropolitan area, and in Philadelphia, and through Michela's Instagram Page
Artist Statement
My art is indebted to my unwavering commitment to the depiction of reality, or mimeticism, which has always guided my practice.I find excitement in bridging this artistic style with allegories. I compose these allegories according to the narratives inspired by the stories and emotions evoked by art history, books, songs or film.
My process usually starts with drawings to figure out the basic composition. Once I know what format I will use, I will stretch my own linen and prime it three times. Meanwhile, I create an installation that I can paint from, a stage for the hired model, lighting with a combination of natural and colored artificial light, attributes like still life props and clothing or drapery appropriate for the concept. Craftsmanship and draughtsmanship are essential components of my artistic process. I draw directly on the canvas with a brush. In my first pass, I establish general first notes of the color in the light, leaving all my shadow shapes brown. In my second pass, I approach the color in the shadows. Layer after layer, I refine the color harmony, called the “light key”, then I soften the edges between the shapes, always developing the smoothness of the paint surface. I want the forms to leap out of the canvas, but the surface to be as flat and smooth as skin. A painting is finished when all the parts are unified and the form is bathing in strong light and shadow..
I invite the viewer to align their own story within each piece, to engage with the subject matter as it relates to them on multiple levels. Ultimately my allegories and traditional narratives are created for entertainment and delight.
An Introduction to American Beauty =
by Tracey Norre Thomsen
Fragile, illusory, yet utterly captivating, beauty holds the promise of happiness in a brush
stroke. It’s the American Dream, to hold still the moment in time when the flowers have just unfurled, their velvet promises inviting, youth at its most vibrant. The roses are not the traditional lust-born crimson, but virginal and virtuously white.
A romantic pink light washes over the tableau. Her body is painted as alabaster,
her hair flowing goddesslike; Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, Aphrodite in a modern canvas. As in the 1999 movie of the same name, she embodies the unattainable. She is the idealization of desire, a search for perfection. Barbie.
Once innocently all young, we were burdened by our potential, yet untainted by life’s blows. The young woman in American Beauty surrenders in repose. She will never be this powerful again and yet she does not know that. She has as yet no idea the superficiality of the world, nor the cruelty of time. 
LINK TO DISCOVER AVAILABLE WORKS
Michela Mansuino Channel, YouTube = https://www.youtube.com/@michelamansuino1069
WHAT OTHER ARTISTS ARE SAYING
ABOUT ME=
MASTER FRESCO PAINTER OTELLO CHITI
TRANSLATION, IN ENGLISH, SIENA, 1986
Introducing Michela Mansuino, a young Italian American artist, is for me a matter of particular satisfaction and interest. Satisfaction because I had the opportunity and the pleasure to give her drawing lessons some years ago during her sojourn in Siena; and after, during her studies in America at the “Tyler School of Art” of Philadelphia where she graduated with the highest grades, and her frequent sojourns in Europe and Italy, knowing of her brilliant activities corroborated by flattering successes which allowed her to win various prizes in exhibitions and competitions. Interest and appreciation for her pictorial “credo” based, as for matter of technique, on her study of the impressionists and the great masters of the Renaissance (I also gave her lessons in fresco painting): and also for her artistic expression oriented on the poetic representations of reality by means of a pure and linear figurative
language, absent of the nonsense and tricks of some contemporary manifestations.
Such qualities are easily found, above all, in her Tuscan landscapes where her incisive and penetrating design, her sober and delicate shade of color, her exact perception of spaces in the harmonious succession of plains and hills, succeed in expressing all of their unequaled fascination.
It goes without saying that Michela’s Art goes beyond this point: the introduction of figures even in the landscape (some examples of which may also be seen herein), the vivid interpretation of certain portraits, foreshadow interests that go beyond the themes developed up to now. And the artist’s young age, her seriousness and commitment in her work, are to be considered sure indications for further developments and conquests that go beyond mere themes.
IN OTELLOS'S WORDS, IN ITALIAN
Presentare Michela Mansuino, questa giovane artista italo-americana, e per me motivo particulare soddisfazione e interesse. Soddisfazione perche ebbi la ventura e il piacere di impartirle, alcun anni fa, durante un suo soggiorno a Siena, le prime lezioni di disegno: e poi, via via, durante i suoi studi in America presso la “Tyler School of Art” di Filadelfia dove si diplomo a pieni voti, e le sue frequenti permanenze in Europa e in Italia: di seguirne il brilliante cammino, confermato ad lusinghieri successi che le permisero di vincere vari premi in mostre e concorsi. Interesse e apprezzamento per il suo “credo” pittorico, basato, per quanto concerne la tecnica, sullo studio degli impressionisti e dei grandi maestri del Rinascimento (io le ho impartito anche lezioni di affresco); e, per quanto reguarda l’espressione, orientato alla rappresentazione poetica della realta, attraverso un languaggio figurative puro
e lineare, scervo dal funambolismi e astruserie di certe manifestationi attuali.
Tali qualita sono facilmente riscontrabili sopratutto nei suoi paesaggi toscani dove il suo disegno incisivo e penetrante, la sua cromia sobria e delicata, l’esatta percezzione degli spazi nel susseguirsi armionioso dei piani e dei colli, riescono a esprimere tutto il loro ineguagliabile fascino.
Va da se che l’Arte id Michela non is esaurisce qui: I’introduzione di figure anche nel paesaggio (di cui possiamo vederne anche qui qualche esempio), la viva interpretazione di certi ritratti, preannunciano interessi che vanno al di la dei temi finora trattati. E la giovane eta dell’artista, la sua serieta e impegno nel lavoro, sono di ritenersi sicure promesse per ulteriori nuovi sviluppi e conquiste, e non solo nelle tematiche. Otello Chiti, Siena, 31-10-1986
RESUME
COLLECTIONS
The Harvey Maisel Collection of Art, Washington D.C.
Bill Travis, various Tuscan Landscapes, Texas
Maurizio Mora, various figure and landscape paintings, Turin, Italy
Susana Lindoso, private chapel, Saire, Pernambuco, Brazil, (32 square meters, mural art)
Pinacoteca of Poggibonsi, Siena, Italy
The Brazilian-American Cultural Institute, Washington, D.C.
Mr. and Mrs. Mike Violette, Portraits and Tuscan Landscapes
Tracey Norre Thomsen, Portraits and Tuscan Landscapes
Mr. Janos Somogyi, various paintings
Mr. Luis Chaves, Tuscan Landscapes
Mr. and Mrs. John Kennan, various Tuscan Landscapes
Dr. and Mrs. Garnet D. McPherson, various Portraits, Tuscan Landscapes and Still Life
Dr. Arlinda Martins, various still life paintings
Dr. Lucilo Avila, Recife marina paintings
Dra. Sandra Vilar, various Recife marinas, landscapes and figure paintings
SOLO SHOWS
Twenty + Tuscan Landscape Paintings, “Vienna Behavioral Clinic”, Chantilly, Virginia
"Bridging Her Life” The Hermitage Gallery, McLean, VA
"Italian Landscapes" oil paintings and graphite drawings at Gallery K, Washington., D.C.
"La Tavolozza Dorata" Galleria Casa Di Chesino, Poggibonsi, Siena, Italy
GROUP SHOWS AND PRIZES
Zenith Gallery's 47th Amethyst Anniversary Show, Washington, D.C., featuring "Jade"
Zenith Gallery's 46th Pearl Anniversary Show, Washington, D.C., featuring "The Memory of Youth"
Fine Art Connoiseur Magazine, July 2022 Issue, Still Life Feature
Faculty Show at Studio Incamminati, The Bok Building, 7th Floor, annually
Cover and central article in Elan Magazine, March 2021 and
"Bridging Her Life, Elan Magazine, June 2006 issue
"Philadelphia's Freedom" The National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia
“Strictly Painting” First Place, McLean Project Arts, Annual East Coast Exhibition
Art Renewal Center, International Salon Finalist
Finalist and Honorable Mentions, Sculpture and Painting, The Portrait Society of America
International Guild of Realism, Winter Online Salon Finalist and American Art Collector magazine
The Jack Richeson and Maggie Price Scholarship; the Philadelphia Foundation’s D. Colman Witte, and four yearly Studio Incamminati Scholarships
Freemans Auction House, Philadelphia, PA
Susan Calloway Gallery, "The Landscape Now", Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Zenith Gallery, various shows, Washington, D.C.
"Three Landscape Painters from San Gimignano" L'Albero Celeste, San Gimignano, Siena, Italy
"The Ten Newest Pernambuco Artists" The Emporium of Bom Jesus, Recife, PE, Brazil The Philadelphia Museum of Art Gift Shop, Pastry Pastel Still Life
"Award Exhibition for Emerging Artists" Artist's Equity Association Traveling Show, U.S. East Coast Cities, "View of Pottsville, PA"
Pearl Stein Gallery, Elkins Park, PA Pastry Pastel Still lifes
EDUCATION
Studio Incamminati, Certificate of Achievement Philadelphia, PA
BFA Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA Understudied Professors Roger Anliker, Chuck Schmidt and Stanley Whitney
Understudied Robert Liberace, figure painting, anatomy and portrait, The Art League, Alexandria, VA
George Mason University, twenty credits toward Masters of Art Teaching degree, Fairfax, VA
Understudied Master Fresco Painter Otello Chiti, Siena, summers, Italy
The Corcoran School of Art, Washington DC