BIOGRAPHY
Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, 1954
BFA, Kutztown University
ABOUT
Michael Kessler's work explores the continuum between gesture and geometry. Each work consists of as many of 50 micro-thin layers of translucent and transparent acrylic.
Biomorphic tendrils branch to and fro, while arcs of line and color slip over and under matrices, balancing nature's sinuous curves with the mindfulness of structure. He likens the gestural freedom in his works to a kind of painterly "tai chi' --a visible expression of a line of energy -- and imbues his structural motifs with a sense of play and buoyancy. Like the yin and yang, the organic and geometric elements in his paintings speak not of dichotomy, but of integration.
Nature provides the bias upon which his work exists. Thirty-five years ago, he began by painting landscapes, growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania. Certain memories became crystallized pieces of his current lexicon. One such set of memories included long slow meanders through the wooded sections of the farm. He clearly remembers studying the floor of the woods, the bark of the trees, branches, leaves, even old pieces of debris such as rusted metals contrasted with the ever-renewing life of the plants.
Other memorable observations took place on ocean beaches, imparting impressions of colors and textures of the sea and the shells, which he references in the creation of some of his work. Later, throughout the prolonged process of observation, it was the inner-dynamics of the natural world that grasped his attention. The questions of how and why nature looks the way it does began to drive his work. He became sensitized to the natural processes responsible for the appearance of the natural world like sedimentation and erosion.
Kessler's compositions are set up to draw attention to things that change and things that remain the same within a matrix of repetition. It is why he often divides his work into bands, which allow him to place elements into and under the layers of the paint, to draw attention to time-sequences and continuums leading the eye/mind through the process. The paintings function much the way music does, but with color and textures he is able to stimulate associations as well as create visual experiences that awaken memories of the tree bark, seashells and the surface of the sea. Nature is his model and transformation is his subject -- his process an organic evolution.
Kessler's work can be found in over 25 museum collections in the US, in addition to numerous corporate and private collections.
AWARDS / FELLOWSHIPS
1990 Rome Prize, Painting, American Academy in Rome, NYC-Rome, Italy 1
992 Pollock/Krasner Award, Painting, NYC
1985 Awards in the Visual Arts-Five, South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art
1977 Whitney Independent Study Program, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
1983 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Grant in Painting
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
1999/2000 College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico
1993/1995 Carnegie Mellon University; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1992/1993 Lafayette College; Easton, Pennsylvania
SELECT MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA
Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, Austin, TX
Broad Foundation, Los Angeles, CA Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, NY
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA
Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA
Fine Arts Gallery, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Flint Institute of the Arts, Flint, MI
Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN
Honolulu Academy of the Arts, Honolulu, HI
Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY
Peobody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY
The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Reading Public Museum, Reading, PA
Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
SELECT CORPORATE COLLECTIONS
Pfizer Inc, New York, NY
Golden Artist Color, Berlin, NY
PepsiCo, Camden, NJ
Price Waterhouse, Washington, D.C.
Boone County National Bank, Columbia, MO
Morris James, Hitchens & Williams LLP, Wilmington, DE
Prudential Insurance Co., Newark, NJ
Regent Hotel, Hong Kong Exxon, Houston TX
Comcast, Philadelphia, PA
Deloitte & Touch , Atlanta, GA
Austin Company, Cleveland, OH
El Paso Energy, Houston, TX
Exxon Moble, Houston, TX
Young Conoway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP, Wilmington, DE
Ericsson, Gothengerg, Sweden American Financial Group, New York, NY
First Union Bank, Philadelphia. PA
Compaq Computer, Houston, TX
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Allentown, PA
Bank of Boston, Boston, MA
Bank of Japan, New York, NY
Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, NY
Northwest Airlines, St. Paul, MN
Heller Financial, Chicago, IL
Rubenstein Co. Pittsburgh, PA
Phillips Service, Pittsburgh, PA
Freemarkets, Pittsburgh, PA
Buchanan Ingersoll, Pittsburgh, PA
Gateway Towers, Pittsburgh, PA
Morgan, Lewis, Bockius, Pittsburgh, PA
Tokio Marine Management, New York, NY
Jacobson/Sylvester, Pittsburgh, PA
Tyson Corner, New York, NY
Vanguard Group, Valley Forge, PA
The Macy's Collection, NV
Duff & Phelps, Chicago, IL
Penton Media Inc. Cleveland, OH
Lincoln Financial Group, Fort Wayne, IN
Hallmark Cards, Kansas City, MO
Rodale Press, Emmaus, PA
Scimed Life Systems, Inc., Minneapolis, MN
Sears Merchandise Group, Hoffman Estates, IL
SOHIO, Cleveland, OH
Vector Securities, Deerfield, IL
The St. Paul Companies, St. Paul, MN
Hart Senate Building, Senator Specter's Office, Washington, DC
Voyageur Fund Managers, Minneapolis, MN
Wharton School of Business, University of PA
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