VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Galveston Arts Center is pleased to present Michael Tole: Struck by Lightning More Than Once, She Didn’t Yield, featuring paintings by this Dallas-based artist. The exhibition will open during the November 27th ArtWalk  and remain on view through January 16, 2011. Curator Clint Willour will lead a gallery talk with the artist at 6:30 pm.

Working in the tradition of the Photorealists, painter Michael Tole’s compositions are based in photography. His subjects are never staged, rather they are captured in situ, and painted as they were found, although he introduces “the element of chance” by shaking the camera while taking the photo. The resultant image captures the blurs and streaks, over saturation of color and light, as well as quirky cropping and shallow depth of field that one might associate with an amateur snap-shot of Christmas lights—out-of-focus, semi-recognizable subject matter enlivened by ribbons of brilliant color.

“I love the telltale signs of photography: blurred edges, double images, red edges between dark and light, and harsh cropping. They seem to add a sense of other worldliness to the subject matter, yet as photographs, those signs don’t feel incorporated into the imagery.… Once painted, those charming, mysterious telltale signs of photography become fully integrated into the image,” Tole notes.

The exhibition will include oil paintings on canvas and prints dating from 2007 to the present. One series is of reproduction Fabergé Eggs he came across in a Dallas gift shop. In works such as Untitled (Chariot with Silver and Purple), 2007, rich jewel tones and streaks of golden embellishment reflect the baroque richness of the era in which the original objects were created. Tole writes that his paintings become consistent with that realm by becoming “beautiful baubles that embody the power, wealth and prestige of their patrons.”

The most recent works in the exhibition focus on a group of Asian curiosities the artist encountered at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum in St. Augustine, Florida. Peaked pagodas, dragons, and robed figures occupy the imagined and seemingly floating miniature worlds carved from Chinese camel bones. In Untitled (Green Grotto), 2010, swirls of jade green foliage hover over a group of glowing red figures, implying a narrative that is left to the viewer to construct.

Michael Tole was born in Dallas in 1979. He earned a BFA in studio art from The University of Texas at Austin in 2000. Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Caine Schulte Gallery, San Francisco and Conduit Gallery, Dallas. In 2007 he was awarded the Hunting Art Prize for painting.

Galveston Arts Center is currently operating in a temporary downtown gallery space—the site of the former Maceo’s Spice and Import Company located on the corner of Market and 25th Streets. The administrative offices are also at this location. The gallery and selections from GAC’s retail gallery, ArtWorks, are open to the public Wednesday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 12 noon to 5 pm.
 
A flyer listing all ArtWalk participants with times and locations can be downloaded at www.galvestonartscenter.org. 

SUPPORT AND SPONSORSHIP
Funding for GAC’s exhibition programs is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston Endowment, Inc., Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund, The National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, the City of Galveston through the Hotel Occupancy Tax Fund, The Levin Family Foundation, and the generous support of the community, volunteers and an active membership. GAC’s Art for All Education Program is supported in part by the Harry S. and Isabel C. Cameron Foundation, Wilton and Effie Mae Hebert Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, The Brown Foundation, Inc., Alice Taylor Gray Foundation, Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund, and the Jr. League of Galveston County’s Community Assistance Fund.

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

Detail above, full image below
Michael Tole
Untitled (Chariot with Silver and Purple), 2007
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches
Courtesy the artist and Conduit Gallery, Dallas

Pictured below
Michael Tole
Untitled (Green Grotto),2 010
Oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches
Courtesy the artist and Conduit Gallery, Dallas