We’ve all had experiences which seem to connect us to a larger existence. We are transported to a threshold of new understanding and resonance. As a visual artist, I celebrate this unique human capacity – I channel sensations, emotions, and ideas, producing a unique voice which lives in the work that I make. Gee’s Bend quilts, Hubble Telescope images, cave art, sacred sites, nature forms, sacred texts, ancient rituals, jazz music, and poetry: these are some of the starting points, as they may trigger this sense of expansion of self into a more resonant life. - Michael Barringer A native North Carolinian, Michael began expressing his artistic abilities at a young age. He remembers always feeling the magic of being in the ocean or the mountains, and wanting to make his own version of those experiences through art. With a long lineage of artisans, one could suppose his knack for creating is in his blood. Along with his training in the fine arts, Michael also holds a BA in English from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He is inspired particularly by the written word such as poetry, novels, religious history, anthropology, biology, and art history; however, he believes everything serves as inspiration and nothing should be ignored. “A question which is always present for me: how does the world fit together from its many parts, and what drives our need to know and create and seek the spiritual?" Authentic expression presenting itself as an inevitable presence is his artistic goal, as well as a well-crafted surface. "That," he says, "is mandatory!" A favorite quote of his is by painter Robert Ryman, which states: "The one quality I look for and I think is in all good painting, is that it has to look as if no struggle was involved. It has to look as if it was the most natural thing – it just happened and you don’t have to think about how it happened. It has to look very easy even though it wasn’t.” Anne Neilson Fine Art Gallery is proud to represent Michael and several pieces from multiple series of work. “Michael Barringer’s engrossing abstract images are typically replies to poems. Memory, bodily impermanence, and the spiritual journey are among the topics. To render these intangible themes, the artist compiles imagery in layers of gesso, charcoal, pastel, acrylic, and oil pigment that reveal themselves to the viewer only gradually. The eye finds as much pleasure in discerning what has been obscured as in interpreting what is readily apparent. Symbolic revelations come to the viewer alongside pure physical delight. - Jerry Cullum, for ARTnews