Berenice Michelow's emigration to the United States from her native South Africa in 2004 marked the beginning of the third phase in her career.  The first featured her "protest" paintings, symbolic representations of Apartheid's injustice.  Works of the second phase were responses to the new South Africa's evolving democracy.  Her current phase features impressions of her adopted homeland and its "overwhelming patriotism." 

But this overview doesn't even hint at the versatility of Michelow's artistry.  Whether working on canvas or paper, with oils or pastels, in charcoal or 3D UV, Michelow's technical mastery is self-evident, often evincing itself in an unfolding of photographic realism played out in the midst of otherworldly abstraction. Michelow has enjoyed decades of commercial success.  In 1979 she represented South Africa at the International Biennale in Valparaiso, Chile.  To date she has had 27 private shows worldwide, and her work is held in such high-profile collections as that of the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City.