Thursday, October 1, 2026
Butterflies have landed at the Sea Cliff Arts Council. A collection of butterfly paintings by local artist Michele Evola make up the arts council’s latest exhibit, which opened on Friday. Evola’s pieces are being shown at the arts council building at 86 Roslyn Ave. in Sea Cliff through February.
Oil paintings, mixed media and digital art are all featured in the exhibit. This is Evola’s first solo exhibition and the first time she has shown oil paintings since her graduate show.
“It’s different, and obviously the subject matter is very unique,” said Meaghan Travis, chief operating artist at the arts council. “It’s a focus on one subject. It’s really beautiful, and it has so many different layers of meaning.”
Evola moved to New York from California in 1976 to get a Master of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute and make a living as an artist. She had a studio where she taught classes while living in New York City and now lives in Roslyn Heights. A lot of her work is in graphic design in the publishing industry.
As an arts council member, Evola attends monthly Art Hang meetings and described the organization as her “home away from home.”
“I can say that ever since I was a kid,” Evola said. “I knew I was an artist, but I never knew what to paint, and so I was always relying on inspiration from books, from magazines, from images.” She added that coming across “Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World” by Irene Vallejo motivated her to sort through her butterfly paintings and show them. In the book, ashes from the burning libraries of Sarajevo were describes as “black butterflies.”
Evola is primarily a photorealist, but some pieces in the exhibit have abstract features. She said she was “shy” about her art style before graduate school but that it works for her because she needs a subject and wants to send a message.
The collection includes artwork of butterflies from a variety of perspectives.
“It’s really the macro and the micro of these different images, and so it’s really cool,” Travis explained. “At some points, things look abstract, and then you really get a more detailed, fine view of a butterfly.”
Evola was joined by her partner, friends and some of her students at the opening on Friday. She praised the arts council for its work in Sea Cliff.
“What a wonderful gift to our community,” Evola said. “I am really, really thankful for this opportunity.”
Evola will host an art talk on Feb. 1 and teach a workshop on Feb. 8. Signups will be available at SeaCliffArtsCouncil.org.
