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Michael Griesgraber | |||
I was born and grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I attended Cretin High School and the University of Minnesota. My college major was fine arts, studying under Peter Busa, Ralph Brown and Cameron Booth. While in college I became assistant to Peter Seitz, Walker Art Center's design curator. In the early 70s I was elected president of the Minnesota Chapter of Artist's Equity. After earning my Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in painting from the U of M I went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York's Syracuse University in 1977, studying under notables Don Trousdell, Lou Dorfsman, Herb Lubalin and Mark English. For the next twenty-plus years I applied my creative talents to the field of advertising, working for a large ad agency, and several international corporations including Seagate and Nortel. In 2001 I moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to paint full-time. I employ a variety of styles because I enjoy the freedom of working in whatever manner suits the idea I want to express. The most common attribute of my work is the use of vibrant color. Recently I've been working on abstract paintings in acrylic. Some of them combine colors, wet-in-wet. I like the way the resulting painting freeze a moment in the creative process. I will sometimes add geometric shapes to define the images. The geometry serves as counterpoint to the organic nature of these works. I enjoy contrasting order and precision with the seemingly random nature of creation. I have exhibited in many group and one man shows over the past 30 years. My first juried award was in 1965: 1st Prize, Fine Arts - Drawing, (Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Dept). My work has received recognition in many shows since including: Honorable Mentions - Painting, Sky 75 and Sky 82 (Fine Arts Society of Dakota County, MN.); 2 Place - Painting, 1975 Fine Arts Exhibition (Minnesota State Fair); Blue Ribbon-Painting, 1976 American Revolution Bicentennial Metamorphose/One show (Saint Paul, MN.); Third Prize - Mixed Media, Las Vegas Museum of Art 2003 Fall Roundup; Honorable Mention - Painting, 2004 Mesquite Spring Juried show, (Mesquite, NV) My paintings are in private collections in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington D.C. and Vancouver, BC. | |||
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Yellow Red Blue 48"x 48" | |||||||||||||||
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Flameout 18"x 24" | |||||||||||||||
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