Material Acts of Resistance
/Material Acts of Resistance: Michèle Colburn
FOUNDERS GALLERY | OCTOBER 31, 2025–FEBRUARY 6, 2026
Material Acts of Resistance: Michèle Colburn brings together a selection of mixed-media works that transform the materials of conflict into meditations on endurance, vulnerability, and dissent. Through the use of gunpowder, wire, thread, and burnt paper, Colburn reconfigures symbols of violence into gestures of reflection and renewal. Her practice explores how the act of making can itself become a form of resistance, translating the volatile into the contemplative, and the destructive into the poetic.
Colburn’s process, rooted in physical gesture and deliberate refinement, began when she was first introduced to musket powder during her MFA studies in 2012. Early experiments involved shooting paper with a Beretta M9, the U.S. military’s standard-issue handgun, transforming acts of aggression into marks of inquiry. Over time, her work evolved into what she describes as “rendering the gunpowder inert,” a quiet act of reclamation. Her two-phase method combines action and restraint: vigorous pouring and pressing of diluted gunpowder onto paper, followed by the careful refinement of imagery through paint, erasure, and drawing. The resulting surfaces shift between deep velvety blacks, crystalline textures, and silvery residues; records of transformation that echo both destruction and repair.
Influenced by the Washington Color School’s physical engagement with pigment and the meditative tonal explorations of Ed Ruscha, Colburn situates her practice within a lineage of material experimentation. Her work insists on a distinct perspective—feminist, anti-violent, and profoundly contemporary.
About the Artist
Michèle Colburn (b.1953, Washington, DC) is a multi-disciplinary artist who lives and works in Washington, DC. Colburn received a BA in Art History from Franklin & Marshall College and an MFA in Studio Art, along with an art teaching certification, from American University. Having received multiple grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, she has also received a Puffin Foundation grant, as well as fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and American University. Colburn’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions in Washington, DC, MOCA Arlington, and with the now-closed Charles Krause Reporting Fine Art. She has also participated in juried and invitational group exhibitions throughout DC, the mid-Atlantic, New York, and Los Angeles.
Her works are included in the District of Columbia’s Art Bank; The International Peace Museum, Dayton, OH; the Fl3tch3r Foundation, TN; the Barlow-Gilotty Collection, DC; and in other private collections in the DMV, Baltimore, Los Angeles, London, and Rabat. In 2022, Colburn’s The Trip Wire Project and select paintings were exhibited at the International Peace Museum in Dayton, Ohio. The Trip Wire Project, a work incorporating public interaction and 10+ years of making, is included in the book Seeing Atrocities: Ethics for Visual Encounters with Intolerable Harms by philosopher and genocide scholar Paul Morrow, published by Oxford University Press this fall.
INSTALLATION VIEWS
Exhibition Information
Material Acts of Resistance: Michèle Colburn for the media and public:
On display October 31, 2025—February 6, 2026
Viewing Hours: Monday-Sunday 8am-10pm
Founders Gallery
3351 Fairfax Drive, Arlington VA 22201
Metro: Virginia Square/GMU (Orange/Silver)
Paid parking in Vernon Smith Garage and Van Metre Garage | Paid Street parking
Public Programs
Joint programming with the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution:
November 13, 2-3:30pm
The Narrative Transformation Lab and Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation, will join Michele Colburn in dialogue.
Material Acts of Resistance Opening Reception
November 13, 5-7pm
Founders Gallery is located inside the Van Metre Hall Lobby on George Mason University’s Mason Square Campus.
The address to the building is 3351 Fairfax Drive, Arlington VA. Visitor parking is available in the Vernon Smith Garage and Van Metre Garage, with the rates set at the prevailing rates for all University visitor garages. Street parking is also available.
About Mason Exhibitions
Mason Exhibitions offers a multi-venue forum for the presentation of contemporary visual artists who advance research, dialogue, and learning around global social issues. Galleries are located on the Fairfax, Arlington, and Manassas campuses. Through its research partnership with Provisions Research Center for Arts and Social Change, Mason Exhibitions develops cross-disciplinary curatorial platforms to engage questions around philosophy, social justice, the environment, communications, conflict transformation, identity, and technology. www.masonexhibitions.org.
About George Mason University
George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public research university, is located near Washington, D.C., and enrolls more than 40,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the last half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity, and commitment to accessibility. In 2023, the university launched Mason Now: Power the Possible, a one-billion-dollar comprehensive campaign to support student success, research, innovation, community, and stewardship. www.gmu.edu.
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