Michaela Macenauer

Welcome to my creative space. I invite you to explore my work and the journey that has shaped it. Art has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a child, I spent countless hours drawing, often alongside my grandfather, who also introduced me to photography. Those early moments taught me to observe the world more closely — to notice light, color, composition, and the emotions hidden within seemingly ordinary things. At the age of twenty, I left for the United States, where I spent a year working in an art supply store. Being surrounded by paints, brushes, canvases, and creative people every day brought me even closer to art. During that time, I also attended drawing and painting classes, gradually discovering that creating was more than an interest I had carried since childhood — it was something I wanted to pursue seriously. After returning home, I decided to study Applied Painting in Zlín. It was an intense period of my life, combining full-time work with my studies. It was demanding, but also deeply fulfilling, and it confirmed that art was something I wanted to keep at the center of my life. Over time, my work has evolved towards abstraction and a more intuitive way of painting. Today, color, movement, texture, and layering form the core of my visual language. I am fascinated by the way a painting can communicate without explaining — how a gesture, a trace of color, or a partially hidden form can evoke something deeply personal. My creative process often involves building, disrupting, covering, and revealing. Some elements remain visible, while others disappear beneath the surface, leaving only traces of what was there before. I am interested in this space between presence and absence, control and spontaneity, the visible and the concealed. Alongside painting, photography has once again become an important part of my creative practice. I am particularly drawn to portrait, glamour, and artistic nude photography, where I explore the human form, individuality, intimacy, and the relationship between light and the body. Much like in my paintings, I am less interested in simply documenting what is visible and more interested in capturing atmosphere, emotion, and the presence of the person in front of my camera. Increasingly, I find myself drawn to the space where these two mediums meet — where photography becomes painterly and painting carries traces of the human figure. Both allow me to explore the same questions through a different visual language. For me, creating is not about reproducing what we see. It is about giving form to what we feel but cannot always put into words.