A series of works-in-progress that continue an exploration of contemporary portraiture, instinct and abstraction.
Classical and conceptual forms create a cohesive whole from seemingly disparate elements, and build what is hopefully an inclusive and complete vision, in which the familiar and unfamiliar are given equal grounding. These works-in-progress include plaster, concrete, rotocast plastics, ceramics, bookmaking, and darkroom photographic printing. Process and the documentation of process becomes a part of the whole. All of this is done in the buildup to a one person exhibition at the Ica Milano Foundation, from December 2023 to March 2024 and titled I have lost and I have been lost but for now I'm flying high.
As an undergraduate studio art major at the University of Georgia, Michael Stipe (born 1960 in Decatur, GA) studied photography and painting before leaving school upon the formation of R.E.M., the band for which he served as frontman and singer/songwriter until its dissolution in 2011. The sensibility that he began to develop during his time as an art student transferred to the spectrum of his work for R.E.M., from art directing all graphic, video and stage design, to writing, composing and performance, and his iconoclastic personal style.
