Michelle Gagliano is an Artist-farmer who redefines landscape painting by merging Renaissance-inspired techniques with contemporary ecological stewardship. As a process painter, her work explores the intimate relationship between substance and source, employing handmade pigments and ink from natural material that she cultivates on her Artfarm in Virginia.  These materials give rise to the distinctive tonal and textural qualities of her work, revealing painting as an alchemical, cyclical, and deeply situated practice.

Born in upstate New York and raised on a farm, Gagliano developed an early intimacy with the rhythms of the seasons and the quiet dialogue between earth and sky. Deeply committed to environmentally conscious practice, she has dedicated her life to painting in and with nature, honoring its grace and complexity. Now living and working in the hills of central Virginia, her daily pre-dawn walks have become a ritual of communion with nature, attuning her to the fleeting essence of each moment. This meditative presence infuses her paintings, allowing her to translate not the literal appearance of the landscape but its living energy, the movement and hidden conversations of trees, wind, and soil.

Gagliano, a painter of Italian and Swedish heritage, sustains one of the most profound contemporary dialogues with Renaissance painting, particularly with Raphael. Thanks to a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) Fellowship awarded in 2021, she conducted extensive research into Raphael’s pigments, materials, and techniques, culminating in her pivotal series Raphael in Pigments. By revisiting centuries-old recipes, Gagliano reclaimed a lost material intimacy and avoided modern reliance on plastics, petrol, and toxic heavy metals. Her study of Raphael continues to inspire her work and led her to co-found in 2024 the Sei Raffaello Artist Residency in Urbino, where she serves as Co- Founder and Artistic Director, mentoring artists in climate forward sustainable studio practices and material innovation.

Gagliano earned her BFA in Painting, with a minor in Art History, from Plymouth State University, NH. and later completed her MFA at American University in Washington, D.C. A recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship — an honor she shares with artists such as Cy Twombly — she has held solo exhibitions across the United States and internationally, including at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the William King Museum, the Raphael House Museum in Urbino, and the American Embassy in Rome.

Her work is held in the permanent many prominent museum collections, such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, the Accademia di Raffaello, Casa Natale di Raffaello Museum, Urbino, Italy, and the Burchfield Penney, N.Y.  In 2025, her work was the subject of an artist monograph, Michelle Gagliano: Cultivating the Sublime, published by Silvana Editoriale, Milan.

In addition to her studio work, Gagliano is an art educator and advocate for sustainable painting. She regularly leads workshops and lectures on eco-conscious techniques, drawing from both Raphael’s historic recipes and her own reinterpretations. Currently teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University, she has helped numerous artists and students transition to environmentally responsible studio practices.