Groveland Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Window Light, an exhibition of new paintings by Michael Banning. Banning’s oil paintings and drawings of contemporary American urban, industrial, and domestic landscapes have been exhibited in solo exhibitions in Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, and New York City. Banning’s work has also been included in regional group exhibitions at several Midwestern institutions, including Chicago’s Harold Washington Library, the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, the Rockford Art Museum, the Kohler Art Center, the South Bend Regional Museum of Art, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, and Manifest Creative Research Gallery in Cincinnati, among others. Banning is the recipient of grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, and the City of Chicago, where he lived for seven years.

This is Banning’s fourth solo exhibition of work at Groveland Gallery focusing on the interior of his home, which he describes as both “studio and subject.” Window Light showcases Banning’s ongoing commitment to reimagining familiar spaces, as he has expanded his subject matter to include small-scale contemplations of the domestic interior and snapshot nocturne scenes. Through close observation of light, shadow, and atmosphere, Banning continues his process of revision and exploration of space and place. Of this new work, he writes:

“I paint to represent the specific and fleeting qualities of sunlight within the interior of my home as well as the glowing lights of neighboring houses as seen from windows during the night.

The light that enters my home and studio is framed by the architecture of windows and doors as it moves slowly through the rooms and hallways. It appears as familiar, yet abstract, geometric shapes that shift in form on walls, floors, radiators, and drapery. These paths and shapes of light change predictably with the passing of the seasons, as do the interconnected shapes of shadow.

In addition to specific qualities of light, I find endless mystery and intrigue in the surfaces and ornamentation of the historical domestic interior. Well-worn doorknobs and nicked cabinets and doors offer evidence of many lives lived within the space of a home. The goal of my work is to see and represent the familiar spaces of my own home in new and unfamiliar ways and at the same time to make these spaces feel uncannily familiar to others, like a distant memory that can’t quite be reached.”