Michelle Kogan

Michelle Kogan (she/her) ponders beauty, nature, and humanity as an artist, poet, writer, and instructor. Living in her home city Chicago, she has her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her MFA in painting from Northern Illinois University. She actively exhibits her art, and is in private collections, books, and catalogues. She has paintings in the collection of the University of Illinois Chicago, and the Chicago Academy of Sciences. She’s received multiple artist grants, and has poems in many poetry anthologies.

Michelle Kogan is a visual artist, poet, and writer. Nature, figures, social, and environmental justice ignite her art—women, people of color, children, endangered species and—our earth. She explores the idea of imbalance that humans have created in nature. What’s happening to our earth, loss of species and habitats; and in women’s grave loss of choices for their bodies. She's also intrigued by beauty within nature and how it is undervalued.

Her mediums include watercolor, acrylics, oils, pencil, and pen and ink on various surfaces. Being an artist and poet, she also combines poetry within her visual art. Her narrative art—painting, drawing, and poetry—seek to balance today’s din with an inward, reflective breath.

Semi-finalist, The Poet’s Billow, Bermuda Triangle Prize, 2020; Individual Artists Program Grant, City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, 2013; Community Artists Assistance Program Grant, City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs, 2003 & 1998.

The Poeming Pigeon, A Journal of Poetry & Art, Issue 14, The Poetry Box Publishing, 2024; Chicago Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness, University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Anthologies: Fly an Anthology of Poetry, Hey Hey Books, LLC, 2023; Two Truths and a FIB Poetry Anthology, wee words for wee ones, 2023; So Many Animals, Turtle Cove Press, 2022; Things We Feel, Pomelo Books, 2022; Imperfect I & II: Poems About Mistakes: An Anthology for Middle Schoolers, History House Publishers, 2018 & 2022; 10.10 Poetry Anthology Celebrating 10 in 10 Different Ways, wee words for wee ones, 2022; The Best of Today’s Little Ditty Volume I, II, & III, Igoo Island Press, 2016, 2017, & 2019.

Koehnline Museum of Art, Des Plaines, Illinois; International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago; United States Botanic Garden, Washington DC; studio b., Three Oaks, Michigan; Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago; Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; Evanston Art Center; Hyde Park Art Center; Chicago Botanic Garden; Noyes Cultural Arts Center; River East Art Center, Chicago; Inclusion Arts Gallery, Chicago; Harold Washington Library, Chicago; Erector Square Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; College of Lake County, Grayslake, Illinois; Struve Gallery, Chicago; Harper College, Palatine, Illinois; Beacon Street Gallery, Chicago; Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Topeka Gallery, Chicago; Pentagon Building, Washington, DC.