Between Ink and Silence : A conversation with Michele Cade Khelifi
In a world obsessed with immediacy—where curated personas and carefully filtered lives flood our feeds—Michele Cade Khelifi’s work asks us to slow down. To look. To linger. To feel.
Her canvases are not declarations, but conversations. Not loud, but layered. In her studio tucked away in Dubai, Khelifi creates abstract works that fuse calligraphy, painting, and emotion in gestures both intimate and expansive. Her pieces don’t shout. They breathe. And between each stroke, each veil of translucent ink, lies the tension of being seen and staying hidden.
Born in 1980, Khelifi studied at Central Saint Martins before spending two decades in branding. But it wasn’t until living in Hong Kong—surrounded by the quiet force of Chinese calligraphy—that she returned to painting. What emerged was a practice that lives at the intersection of language and abstraction, writing and silence.
“I don’t consider myself a writer or a painter,” she says. “I use words the way other artists use strokes—purely to express emotion. I’m not interested in legibility. I’m interested in truth.”
What follows is a longform conversation with Michele, touching on everything from grief to handwriting, the poetics of paper, and the ongoing journey of becoming. In many ways, it’s a portrait of a woman who found her voice—not by shouting, but by writing the unsaid.
Michele Cade Khelifi by Rebeka Rysava at Capital D Studio
Your work exists at the intersection of calligraphy, abstraction, and emotion. Are you a writer who paints, or a painter who writes?
I think I exist somewhere between the two—maybe even outside of them. Words are not just carriers of meaning—they’re emotional gestures. They move like brushstrokes. They mark time. They hold feeling.
It’s not polished writing. If you pulled back the layers in my pieces and tried to make sense of them, you probably couldn’t. But it would still be real. It would still be mine. There’s always a story behind it, even if that story dissolves into rhythm, color, and shape.
Your work feels deeply emotional, almost meditative. What’s your process like in the studio?
It’s my meditation. I come in, light some palo santo, put on music—always music—and let go. I paint on the floor. Sometimes I dance. Sometimes I cry. There are footprints in some of my pieces because I want the moment of creation to be embedded in the work itself.
It’s all raw and intuitive. I never know what I’m going to make before I begin. Some days I start with a word. Some days, a color. Other days, a movement. I’m not trying to achieve perfection. I’m trying to be honest.
You’ve done many commissions. How do you stay true to yourself while interpreting someone else’s story?
That took time. In the beginning, I felt boxed in—people would ask me to replicate parts of older works, and I felt like a technician. Now it’s different. It begins with a conversation. We sit, we talk, we open up.
If someone connects to my work, they’re already aligned with me emotionally. So I listen to their story, then reinterpret it through my lens. It becomes a co-creation. They see themselves in it—but it’s still unmistakably mine.
I remember one couple—Argentinian and Filipino. I wrote in Spanish, using lyrics that resonated with me. They found their own meaning in it. That’s the magic.
Michele Cade Khelifi by Rebeka Rysava at Capital D Studio
Your background in branding must influence how you see composition, symbolism, and storytelling.
Definitely. Branding taught me how to distill complex emotion into something simple. But more than logos, it was always the storytelling that drew me in—the tone, the feeling.
Now, I’m still storytelling, just for myself. The shift happened in Hong Kong during COVID. I was listening to Greta Thunberg’s speech about broken promises, and I thought, “I don’t give a shit anymore. I need to say something.” That piece changed everything.
There’s a strong sense of contradiction in your work—you reveal by concealing. Is that intentional?
Always. That tension is the point. We live in a world where everyone shares, but few are truly vulnerable. Even our “bad days” are curated.
In my work, I often write things that are too raw to leave uncovered—so I veil them. I obscure them. That space between visible and invisible is where the emotion lives.
The viewer doesn’t need to read every word. They just need to feel it.
In an age of digital text, what does handwriting mean to you?
It’s everything. Rhythm, imperfection, presence. There’s a humanity in handwriting no font can replicate. Every hesitation, every acceleration—it’s like a heartbeat on paper.
I went to a French school, where we were taught how to write properly. But beyond form, I was obsessed with the motion of writing. As a kid, I told people I wanted to be a writer—not to write stories, but just to write.
It’s intimate. It’s real. And as handwriting disappears, I feel more committed to preserving it through my art.
You lived in Hong Kong for over a decade. How did Chinese calligraphy influence your practice?
Profoundly. Even without understanding the characters, I was moved by the gesture, the reverence. There’s a philosophy in Chinese calligraphy: the space is as important as the stroke. The empty areas aren’t voids—they’re breaths. They hold meaning.
I’ve internalized that. My work now plays with silence and restraint. I never plan a layout, but my understanding of space—thanks to that time—is deeply intuitive.
Your father was a silkscreen printer for Vivienne Westwood. Does that influence your work?
Absolutely. I grew up running around his factory, watching fabric pulled across frames, ink dragged by hand. Even now, when I use a squeegee, I think of him.
That motion—that drag—is in my DNA. I’ve been thinking of bringing thread or textiles into my next series. Maybe sculpture. Something tactile again.
Michele Cade Khelifi by Rebeka Rysava at Capital D Studio
You’ve said, “Your story needs to be told.” Is that the essence of your work?
Yes. That’s the purpose. Whether it’s mine or someone else’s, these stories need to come out. It’s cathartic. It’s healing.
There was one piece I made after my father passed away. I wrote notes for a year—lyrics, phrases, memories—and collaged them into a painting. A woman saw it and asked about it. I told her the truth. She cried. Her father had passed away the same year. She bought it.
It was like the piece found its home.
Calligraphy is often associated with tradition, yet your approach is intuitive, even rebellious. What draws you to this tension?
The tension between control and instinct is where I feel most alive. Calligraphy’s tradition gives it discipline—but within that, I find freedom. It mirrors being human: constantly balancing what we can control with what we can’t.
By embracing improvisation, I bring vulnerability into a rigid form. That’s not just a creative choice—it’s a personal one.
You often conceal your words. What compels you to explore vulnerability this way?
Because vulnerability is powerful—but rare. I use layers of ink and abstraction as veils. What’s hidden can be as powerful as what’s seen.
It mirrors how we relate to others. We don’t connect through perfect clarity. We connect through emotion. Through the spaces in between.
Do you think of your work as a dialogue with yourself, or with the viewer?
It starts with me. With emotion. With unspoken thoughts.
But once it’s finished, it becomes something else. A conversation with the viewer. I want the work to act like a mirror—reflecting something back that they maybe didn’t expect to see.
Image by Rebeka Rysava at Capital D Studio
Do you believe true expression requires an audience?
No. The process of making is, in itself, a form of communication. A private truth.
But when art is shared, it begins a new life. Both are valid. Both are necessary.
Your work often dissolves legibility. Do you want the audience to read—or to feel?
To feel, always.
When you can’t read every word, you start to experience the rhythm, the energy, the silence. It becomes a sensory language.
Do you struggle with what to reveal and what to obscure?
Yes—constantly.
But it’s not a logical decision. It’s emotional. I might feel tempted to reveal more, but then it feels too resolved. Obscuring keeps the piece alive. It leaves room for interpretation.
You have collectors around the world. Have any interpretations surprised you?
Many. A woman in Tokyo once told me one of my pieces reminded her of her mother’s handwriting. Someone in Paris saw landscapes in the lines.
Those moments are beautiful. It means the work is evolving beyond me.
If you could collaborate with any artist, living or dead, who would it be?
Louise Bourgeois. Her emotional fearlessness. The way she used her pain and turned it into form. I imagine weaving my calligraphy into her fabric sculptures, inscribing text onto her monumental shapes. She would challenge me.
If you had to distill your practice into one sentence, what would it be?
Writing the unsaid.
Or: Inviting connection through what’s hidden as much as what’s revealed.
My work is a map of feeling. A landscape of thought. A space where language dissolves and emotion takes shape.
What’s a question you wish people asked more often?
“How does your work change you?”
Because it does. Every piece transforms me. It teaches me something new about letting go, about uncertainty, about listening to the unsaid. That’s the quiet alchemy of making art—it changes the maker just as much as it changes the viewer.