Michael Marshall, 1953, St. Louis, USA
Untitled F11-52, 2011.
About:
Michael Marshall’s monoprints are characterized by a carefully structured and organized rhythm of dynamic lines and organic forms, mastery of the nuances of color and composition, deep sensitivity to texture combined with a display of emotional intensity. A highly inventive and renowned artist who uses complex procedures with oil-based media and overlapping stencils in his paintings, he has consistently explored the expressive possibilities of abstraction in his encounter with history and global transformation over the past three decades. His work is dense with visual overload that reflects an awareness of a vast array of both formal and inherited traditions, and employs a rich vocabulary of signs and markers that speak boldly and clearly to a universal audience. The basis for all of Marshall’s work is drawing and the network of lines on the surface of his pictures are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable, often using them to serve as a means of exploration of formal and perceptual relationships between the artwork and the viewer. His pictures are as complex technically as they are spatially, combining muscular and blocky compositions infused with brilliant yellows, volcanic reds, saturated violets, oranges, and greens to create pictures that possess unique qualities of ripeness and continuous growth.
Untitled F11-71, 2011
Untitled MT-66, 2011.
Variegation-23, 2013.
Statement:
“Calligraphic doodles and other marking strategies originate many of the shapes that are subsequently refined through cutting with a knife and/or scissors into stencil forms. I usually start with two or three large shapes and solid ground coloration and work to place the forms in a manner that will maximize visual tensions. Natural gradations occur as a result of the mixing of color layers from pull off and/or re-rolled stencil forms that have been repositioned as part of the print matrix”.( texts website Skoto Gallery, New York)