Drew Michael: Moonscapes

April

Exhibition runs April 4-28. Opening reception April 4th, 6-8pm, artist in attendance. Exhibit is installed April 1-3.

Contemporary mixed media sculptor Drew Michael (Inupiaq / Yup’ik Nations) returns to the gallery for his fourth solo exhibition this spring. The young sculptor has been delving deeply into the concepts including shadow selves, spirals, and journeys through mazes to reach understanding. Michael utilizes traditional Yup’ik and Inupiaq mask forms as a launch-pad from which to then explore his contemporary life, adding non-traditional materials and found objects that imbue his masks and mask-forms with resonance. Michael’s works often exhibit a mixture of influences, from Alaska Native to Byzantine icon, 1900s fashion and history to contemporary design, and beyond.

Michael is making artwork that draws from his complex and overlapping identities, which include being Alaska Native, Polish, adopted, queer and two-spirit, and peripatetic in his practice. This new body of work goes in new directions and breaks fertile ground. For the first time in many years, Michael returns to strictly mask forms with this show, moving away from the draped figures that have recently dominated his aesthetic. These mask forms are the outcome of tapping deep into his emotional and intellectual landscape and emerging with tangible symbols representative of what he finds therein. Using a mixture of carved and found objects, Michael creates assemblages that represent places, people, experiences and moods that have inspired or influenced him, and each exhibition can be read almost as a moment-to-moment diary.

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Exhibition Dates: