Garden Stories: Michael Black

Informed by a late Modern interpretation of abstraction, my current practice typically moves between painterly and post-painterly interpretations of cultural history and biomorphic forms. The age and patina of old walls, scraps of manuscripts, natural forms, etc. provide sources for the textures and compositions I use in my work.  Whatever the source, I attempt to balance the pre-planned with the immediacy of the painting process itself, so that the images created are able to convey universal themes as well as to allow for variations in interpretation.

Much of my current work is predicated on a tacit acknowledgment that in the current context, landscape/the organic does not exist separately from the artifacts and vestiges of cultural history. To garden, for instance, is most often to make decisions about what to cultivate and what to leave out within a structure – what ‘belongs’ and what does not. Added to this in our time are all the remnants and consequences of the built environment which surround us, and which affect us in everything from the climate crisis to pollutants to urban sprawl. At present, my work often comes out of a consideration of these inter-related factors that are part of contemporary life.