Opening concurrently at the Marsh Art Gallery and the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature is Articulated Spaces: Paintings by Creighton Michael. New York artist Creighton Michael (American, born 1949) examines the way perception affects nature and the way nature influences sight. His abstract imagery derives from fossils, ponds, forests, and other organic models. Although Michael’s work exhibits a conceptual flair, it is also in dialogue with the early American modernists who found inspiration in the sensuousness of nature, such as Milton Avery, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Like them Michael seeks to understand how his hand fulfills the implicit structures he encounters in a forest or a pond.

Depicting what the artist refers to as “incremental structures,” his paintings employ a cumulative layering of marks to attain his intricate compositions. The exhibition includes works from several of the artist’s series, including the Haiku, Mesh, Field, and Pulse series. In each of these series, the artist explores the fluid quality of natural phenomena and optical space.

Creighton Michael received his M.A. in art history from Vanderbilt University and his M.F.A. in painting and multimedia from Washington University in St. Louis. He is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. His works are included in many public collections, and he has had over thirty one-person exhibitions. Articulated Spaces is organized by the University of Richmond Museums, with Richard Waller, Executive Director of the University Museums, serving as curator.