ARTIST STATEMENT“My art is my a way of bearing witness to the mystery of the ordinary, so people stop what they’re doing and pay attention, to something they may have never seen before, but that makes them feel ‘I know this.’” ARTIST BIOWhen Michael was a teenager, his father gave him his 35mm camera, and he began wandering around taking pictures of stuff he found interesting at the time. Michael’s professional photographer friends thought the images had artistic merit, which encouraged him to further his art. In the early 1980s he tried making paintings of the photos. Michael chose gouache and illustration board, just because he had access to those, unaware of the difficulties of the gouache medium.Those early works, while successful (he even made a sale), were put on hold while other life events intervened. In the mid-1990s Michael began painting again, this time in acrylic on canvas. His impetus was to recreate the early painting that he had sold, and always regretted doing so. Michael has been painting steadly ever since.Over the years Michael has come to see his paintings as documents of things looked at but not seen, the ordinary environment that we live in but seldom examine closely. He believes that by close observation, which is necessary to translate source photographs to canvas, he can begin to ­uncover the grace that is hidden in the things around us. The paintings are his way of bearing witness, and of making ­people stop what they’re doing and pay attention, to something they may have never seen before, but that makes them feel “I know this.”Michael’s subject matter is derived (with a few exceptions) from photographs he has taken over the past 40 years. Some older images may appear ­nostalgic, but that was never his intent. He is, however, ever intrigued at how the past lurks in the corners of the present, waiting to be rediscovered.Michael is a self-taught artist. He lives and works in Costa Mesa, CA.