Born in Hanover, PA in 1954
BFA, Kutztown University
Painter Michael Kessler illuminates the ongoing dialogue between natural forces and the human need for order and meaning. Kessler's imagery evokes fossils, cells, lichen, and the branching veins of ferns and trees, contextualizing these elements within immaculate architectonic geometries.
Kessler exhibits a highly personal sense of color: cool sage and mint greens, cozy redwood and desert beige, the zip of electric blue and the primal richness of red against black.
A winner of the Prix de Rome and the Pollock/Krasner Award, Kessler's art work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States and internationally. He lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
STATEMENT
"Nature provides the basis upon which my work exists. Thirty-five years ago I began by painting landscapes, but through prolonged and careful observation it was the inner dynamics of the natural world that grasped my attention. The questions of how and why nature looked the way it did began to drive my work. I began to sensitize myself to the natural processes that were responsible for the appearance of the natural world like sedimentation and erosion. Gradually my painting process took on the characteristics of these natural processes. I invented the process and that process created the images that became my paintings. The process involves the application of many layers of marks and skins. A sandwich of information is built up to reveal the passage of time and it's own creation. Structures both organic and geometric are laid down under and between translucent skins of paint.
These skins are applied with a variety of trowel-like tools I've invented or adapted. The pressure used during the application of a skin determines the degree to which the underlying structures and gestures appear or disappear. Much of the initial painting is buried beneath subsequent layers of paint but remains visible to varying degrees.
The main thing I want my work to convey is a sense of awe and wonder at the vast universe we can never comprehend. That is how I feel about the world we inhabit and those are the feelings I want my work to express."
~Michael Kessler
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, 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, NYC
Golden Artist Color, NY
PepsiCo, Camden, NJ
Price Waterhouse Coopers, Washington D.C.
Prudential Insurance Co., NJ
Regent Hotel, Hong Kong
Exxon, Houston TX
Comcast, Philadelphia, PA
Deloitte & Touché , Atlanta, GA
Austin Company, Cleveland, OH
Exxon Moble, Houston, TX
Ericsson, Gothengerg, Sweden
American Financial Group, NYC
First Union Bank, Philadelphia. PA
Compaq Computer, Houston, TX
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., PA
Bank of Boston, MA
Bank of Japan, NYC
Chase Manhattan Bank, NYC
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, NYC
Jacobson/Sylvester, Pittsburgh, PA
Tyson Corner, NYC
Vanguard Group, Valley Forge, PA
Lincoln Financial Group. PA
Wharton Business School, 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
Sears Merchandise Group,
SOHIO, Cleveland, OH
The St. Paul Companies, MN
Hart Senate Building,
Senator Specter's Office, Washington DC
Voyageur Fund Managers, Minneapolis, MN
