The David Richard Contemporary gallery in Santa Fe, in the US state of New Mexico, is to present an exhibition of works by artist Michael Wright. The show will display more than forty works from various stages in the artist’s career, and is set to take place between 4 May and 9 June 2012.
Born in 1931 in the New Rochelle area of New York, Michael Wright studied at Yale Music and Art School and the Brooklyn Museum School, before entering the US army as a war artist during the Korean War. Upon his return from Korea, he began his career as a painter, becoming friends with Jackson Pollock, and exhibiting in New York galleries. He left New York in 1972 in order to get closer to nature, eventually arriving in Santa Fe in 1985. He was a great traveller, having visited Europe, Africa, India, and Indonesia in search of inspiration. A recognised painter in the United States, he has been exhibited at MoMA in New York, as well as at numerous other American museums.
Wright is an abstract expressionist painter, who makes particular use of blocks of colour. He combines numerous techniques into his work: oil and acrylic, polymer painting, watercolour, collage, design, as well as drawing using charcoal, graphite, and ink. He also incorporates vegetable matter into his work, such as rattan. It is this variety and constant search for new visual subjects that the gallery wishes to focus upon in this exhibition. The majority of featured works date from the last ten years, and contain a freedom of tone and approach. Some works from the 1970s will also be up for sale at the gallery.
Art Media Agency, May 4, 2012