A collection of work by the figurative painter and sculptor Michael Pearce.
The Hospital Paintings is a group of works from the late nineties, when I shared a frightening studio in Beverly Hills with my old friend Christophe Cassidy.
At the opening of the new millennium I began painting large figurative images in the technical tradition of old masters like Caravaggio, whose work I admire. This gallery shows some of the Mystical Paintings.
I’ve made several Nudes.
In the 00′s I became intrigued with archaic religious practice in British prehistory, leading me to create a collection of copper, clay and wax artefacts, then a substantial body of work presented as an installation, the Cabinet of Contemporary Neolithic Wonders.
Finding relationships between archaic practices and hermetic philosophy powerfully influenced my work so I began studying alchemical texts from the 16th and 17th Centuries. Work like The Alchemy Tree began to take on a mystical theme particularly featuring alchemical source material, Coming from a combination of my studies of prehistory and alchemy the images in the Base Matter gallery show simple paintings which have begun a new thread in the work. Recent paintings and installation work develop the alchemical theme further in new ambitious works that can be seen in his The Principle show. There’s an interview and slideshow about the exhibit in the Kwan Fong gallery website (scroll to the bottom of page).
The name of this website is now also the name of an installation in the collection of a Ventura County psychologist who commissioned the piece after seeing the Principle exhibit. The Gilded Ravens now hangs on his living room wall. It’s very similar to the As the Crow Flies installation.
Gilded Ravens, (dimensions vary) Oil on gilded birch panels
