VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The G Gallery in the Heights presents the exhibition Creighton Michael: Motif.  Opening Reception, Saturday, January 8, 2011 from 6pm to 8pm. SHOW Will be up for viewing January 1, 2011 and run thru January 30, 2011.

The current painting series, MOTIF, explores drawing activity first as a deferred then as a direct marking system. Each painting is a synthesis of these two separate marking styles both based in action, but separated by time and how color is perceived. These two opposing forces achieve a perpetual spatial ambiguity, which is underscored by continually shifting patterns within the picture plane. In the deferred marking system, a translucent layering of previously painted acrylic strokes, the color is prismatic. Color appears as the result of light reflecting back through the transparent strata.

The compilation of oil painted gestures floating on the surface creates a tonal calligraphic tapestry of pigment color, whose optical weight contributes to the visual tension in the painting. This fluid script floating along the surface partially conceals and episodically interrupts the rhythms of its underneath counterpart encouraging the viewer to peer through the variable openings of the pigmented lattice in a persistent attempt to reconcile the conflict between these two marking systems in the MOTIF paintings.

MOTIF 810 is in the Splendor of Dynamic Structure: Celebrating 75 Years of the American Abstract Artists, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, January 22–March 20 2011.

Creighton Michael received his M.A. in art history from Vanderbilt University and a M.F.A. in painting and multimedia from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a recipient of a Pollack Krasner Foundation grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in sculpture and a Golden Foundation for the Arts award in painting. His work is in various public and private collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn Museum, High Museum of Art, Atlanta Georgia, Denver Art Museum, Mint Museums of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, The John and Maxine Belger Family Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri, Progressive Corporation, Cleveland Ohio, The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas and Hafnarborg, Iceland.

Michael has had solo exhibitions at the High Museum of Art; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York; Vanderbilt University; the Queens Museum of Art at Bulova Corporate Center; Neuberger Museum of Art; University of Richmond Museums, Richmond, Virginia and The Mint Museums, as well as numerous galleries and art centers in New York City and throughout the United States. Abroad he has had solo exhibitions in Copenhagen, Montreal and Reykjavík. In the November of 2010, Tangible Marking: The Dimensional Drawings of Creighton Michael, will be on view at The College of Saint Rose, Albany, New York. A collaboration with composer Bruce Roter will premier during this exhibition. FILAMENT, another collaboration with light sculptor, Bill FitzGibbons, opens in September of 2010 at the University of Tennessee.

He has been on the faculty at Rhode Island School of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and a visiting artist at numerous colleges and universities including Albright College, Marshall University, Haverford College, Purchase College and University of Richmond. Michael has conducted studio workshops at Anderson Ranch Art Center, The Arts Center in St. Petersburg, Florida and Virginia Commonwealth University to mention a few. He has been a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Hunter College in New York City since 2005. Michael is a member of American Abstract Artists and the International Sculpture Center, where he was recently elected to the Board of Directors.

The artist lives and works in New York.