Bio

Mikhael Antone was born and raised in Cumberland, Rhode Island a small suburb of Providence, RI. After completing her BA at Salve Regina University in philosophy and studio art, she moved to New York with an AmeriCorps Grant to teach Art at an all girl high school in Flatbush, Brooklyn. After living in a former orphanage for a year, she attended School of Visual Arts to study Experimental Video and Photography graduating in 2002. Mikhael has both exhibited and or screened work in New York at Anthology Film Archives, Void, Remote Lounge, BAM Rose cinemas, Praxis Collective, Studio 150, and the College of Staten Island and nationally in Newport, Rhode Island, Houston, Texas and Denver, CO among others. Currently, Mikhael is an adjunct professor of photography and film production at the College of Staten Island: CUNY.  Mikhael lives and works in Staten Island, NY.

Statement

Most of my projects deal with the underlying themes that shape our everyday lives.  Social constructs that are taken for granted or subconscious drives that affect our sense of self and place in society. Having grown up in a small middle class American suburb I struggle with general ideas about expectations of place. I find the suburban lifestyle and landscape to be a concept and or construct of the imagination. Hopes and dreams are placed into homes, cars, purchases and implied social status.

 My photographs and videos deal with people and spaces and are direct reactions to the current American landscape. Whether it’s the subjects reacting to their environments or the landscape is itself as a strange and isolated example of an inner landscape.  Suburban stories and landscapes evoke a sense of objectivity for an agreed upon construct in American society.

In the “To a Man” documentary, I focus on middle class young men growing up in suburban Staten Island. Interviews about the American Dream, religion, race, gender roles and money are juxtaposed with the landscapes of industry, shopping areas and nature. These young men reflect the changes in Middle Class America and examine the social constructs generally attributed to the straight white male.