Michael Bauer

Michael Bauer
Bearnaise Future, 2016
oil on canvas, 30 x 27 inches, Courtesy Mier Gallery, Los Angeles

April, 2017
Griffin Art Projects is pleased to welcome our spring artist in residence, New York based painter Michael Bauer, who will be working here in the studio through the middle of May. We will present a public conversation with Michael Bauer and GAP Director Lee Plested on Saturday, April 22, 3pm.

The uncertain and the uncanny often act as organizing devices in the paintings of Michael Bauer. Like the writing of George Bataille, his image systems utilize the ghoulish and discarded to float as defiant signifiers which are set loose to negotiate fields of defecated smears and corporal masses of painterly surface. Essentially a hermetic mode of research, Bauer is dedicated to the act of painting as enquiry, even if this work is done in a subjective pictorial language. This reckless reasoning is often framed by categorizing elements (sometimes in the form of a demarcating border, sometimes as an architectural detail) that define the picture plane as a field of linguistic research, but one dedicated to an improvisational and intuitive image-based mapping of contemporary human experience.

We are also happy to announce that we have extended the residence of T’uy’tanat - Cease Wyss through the rest of the spring.

Cease has recently returned to textiles after nearly 30 years and has been awarded a grant to hire a master weaver from her community to mentor weaving cedar and wool in Coast Salish styles. This important element of her culture has driven her research of looms, materials and weaving patterns. Wyss will be using the studio space to create a Coast Salish Noble Blanket which will be a part of an upcoming exhibition curated by Adrian Stimson.