While this area includes the big skies, long horizons and stoic farmhouses Michael Paul is best known for painting, this show also includes unique landforms that punctuate the mostly uninhabited landscape of the area:  a wind-swept pine atop the grassy and rocky bluffs along the Little Missouri River; a sparkling prairie pothole in southeastern North Dakota, set against grassy shores and billowing clouds in springtime; the larger-than-life Boxcar Islands in Pigeon Bay, where the northeastern tip of Minnesota meets Canada. For Paul, these landscapes are “defined by the horizon, wide spaces and simple architecture.” He explains: “it is there that the east becomes the west. It’s the floor of the sky: in these places … you can actually feel the sky and hear the heartbeat within your chest.”

Paul is an encaustic painter. Encaustic is a painting medium that involves adding pigments to beeswax instead of oil, then applying the mixture to a panel or canvas. This medium lends his compositions a rich, textured surface, revealing layers of colors and variations of soft and subtle light. His work is included in numerous private and public collections throughout the Midwest, including the North Dakota Museum of Art, Plains Art Museum, the Federal Reserve Bank and Mayo Clinic.

Michael Paul will be present at the opening reception on Friday, October 23 from 5 to 8 p.m. This exhibition and opening run concurrently with Facing North, an exhibition of new paintings by Dan Bruggeman in the main gallery. Both exhibitions continue through November 28.

Press:

Star Tribune | Mary Abbe, “Artists Michael Paul and Dan Bruggeman Chart ‘New Directions’ at Groveland Gallery”