Since November of 2007, Michael has set up popup open studios and painted in a legendary range of situations – from raging basement clubs to NASA's Ames Research Center to New Year's raves in the Costa Rican rainforest – both day and night, onstage and off, alongside internationally renowned artists (Alex & Allyson Grey, Robert Venosa, Martina Hoffmann, Mark Henson, Android Jones, Amanda Sage, Oliver Vernon, Mars-1, Kris D, J Garcia, and many others). 

 

In addition to countless festival appearances, he has held live art residencies in Boulder, Denver, Phoenix, Kansas City, New Orleans, and Austin.  Michael is also a leader within the growing community of live artists – curating live art teams and galleries, organizing regional collectives, and covering the action as a frontline journalist.

 

Michael’s live art is the evolution of his training as a scientific illustrator – his body of work is a field guide to the boundary-living and electric spirits crashing into being through a dancing throng while he is seismograph and portraitist, recording hyperspace while swaying to their beat. Improvised freehand with paint pens, each work emerges organically from the throb of the house and the crowd into closed-eye tessellations, dazzling mandalas, luminous fossils...vivid scenes of unabashed intensity, verdant and exultant imagery written in the natural language of dreams.

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Website: http://michaelgarfieldart.com