Maggie Michael
Maggie Michael
Unicorn Seed Bed: Spring of Cranial Bumps, 2023
Ink, acrylic, spray paint, pine needles on canvas
60 x 72 in (152.4 x 182.9 cm)
Maggie Michael
Kissing Tree: Speaking in Tongues and Eyelashes, Square Root of All Seasons, 2024
Acrylic, enamel, oil, spray paint on canvas
60 x 112 in (152.4 x 284.5 cm)
Maggie Michael
Speed Bump for Moonrise, 2024
Ink, acrylic, enamel, oil, charcoal, autumn leaves, rain, acts of nature on raw canvas
56 x 94 in (142.2 x 238.8 cm)
Painting untethers a mesh of past, present and future. Intuitive and intentional, the emotion of making is moving towards the stillness of viewing, wavering in the density and airiness of our coming and going. Abstraction, a siren for expansive thinking, offers generous clarity and strangeness; also, brutal, base forms of beauty. – Maggie Michael
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce Maggie Michael: Root Chords, Earth to Sky, the artist’s debut exhibition with the gallery and on the west coast. The exhibition will be presented in Gallery 1 from January 11 through February 22, 2025. An artist’s reception will be held on Saturday, January 11 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm.
One of Washington, D.C.’s leading painters, Maggie Michael's lyrical works are a powerful reminder of the transformative potential of abstraction. Her paintings unfold as a series of capricious moments, processes, and forms, evoking the history and energy of American abstract expressionism. Her paintings grapple with nature's profound duality—its capacity to both sustain and destroy, yet, she also prioritizes painterly strategy, using form as a vehicle to convey material content. Michael’s works flow like sequences, a confluence of the visual vocabulary she has developed over her 25-year career.
At the heart of Michael's experiential and experimental project lies an instinctive desire to perceive fresh perspectives, to generate novel, more expansive and illuminating impressions of the world. With each application of paint or rotation of the canvas on the ground, she reaches for ways to understand natural, elemental, and spiritual worlds: sky, trees, mountains, clouds, wind, water, sunlight, bodies (both animal and human), minerals, energy, motion—unfold insights and realizations about existence and the human condition.
Michael's paintings juxtapose expressive, gestural brushwork, with precise shapes and incorporate a diverse range of media including ink, latex, acrylic, oil, and spray paint in a jarring yet harmonious blend of colors. Found objects such as pine needles, feathers, soil, rocks, shells, insects, leaves, and branches also make frequent appearances on her canvases, as she wields an arsenal of abstract techniques to craft richly textured works that stir visceral responses.
Maggie Michael (born, Milwaukee, WI) lives and works in Washington, DC and West Virginia. She earned her MFA from American University, Washington, DC (2002), an MA from San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA (2000), and BFA from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI (1996).
Michael’s work has been exhibited across the US and internationally. Selected exhibitions include: “Fields and Formations, A Survey of Mid-Atlantic Abstraction,” The Delaware Contemporary, DE (2021) and American University Museum, Washington, DC (2022); "One on One: Maggie Michael/Arthur Dove, Depth of Field," The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (2019); "Even the Clouds are not Finished" DCKEAF, Studio Residency at Camelot, Krakow, Poland (2018); "Cubes and Pyramids Share the Same Base", G Fine Art, Washington, DC (2017); "A Phrase Hung in Midair as if Frozen," American University Museum, Washington, DC (2016).
Museum and public collections include the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Smithsonian American Art Museum; The Phillips Collection; US Art in Embassies Collection in Romania and Barbados; Washingtonian Art Bank; The Wilson Building Collection; DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities; American University Museum; and University of Maryland, College Park. Artist residencies include the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, LA; Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, Canada; Cetate Arts Danube, Romania; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Artist at Work Program and the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Washington, DC; and DCKEAF, Studio Residency at Camelot, Krakow, Poland. Awards include the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, the Trawick Contemporary Art Award, and numerous Artist Fellowship Grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities—funded in part by the NEA.