About

I have schizophrenia. It has given me a first hand experience that there is so much more to reality than what we can take in from our five senses. Subtle, slippery and surreal, the nature of reality is confusing at best. The question ‘what exactly is going on here?’ is the unsettling and insidious feeling I am aiming for in my work. Using abstraction and organic minimalism, I point to the ever changing qualities of reality weaving between the familiar and the unfamiliar. I am drawn to the sensual, ephemeral and the ambiguous qualities of everyday materials used in unconventional ways. I explore object relationships to each other and where they are placed generating a conversation between casualness and deliberateness of placement. One’s imagination disentangles from conventional meaning and opens to the poetic relationships unfolding between the objects. Notions that ones ephemeral thoughts or consciousness affect matter and objects are more potentialities than solid objects interest me as a sculptor. Like a bewildering surreal still life our comfort in reality is called into question

Michael had his first psychosis in 2008 at the age of 32 and spent about 10 years not making art. Upon moving to Peterborough, ON. CAN, he has been participating in the art community again.  Michael has had a solo exhibit at Evans Contemporary and a group exhibit at Coeur Nouveau. He has exhibited at Drey Gallery, Toronto, ON. and  internationally at its sister gallery in Berlin, Germany. Michael attended Georgian College, Barrie, ON. for a fine arts diploma, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB. For a BFA, and Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. for an MFA.