MICHAEL K. PAXTON, A MOULIN WALKING SERIES RELEASED
A Moulin Walking series evolved from multiple sketchbook entries on long daily walks of observation and drawing during a month stay in Brittany in an historic renovated moulin (mill) by a river in a very rural area of France. On returning to my Chicago studio I began to consider how to develop these sketches not as illustrations but possible elements to build my paintings. Starting with the simple materials of chalk, charcoal, acrylic on large-scale prepared raw canvas I began to select sketches at random. Once a selection was made and using only my eye and hand I faithfully rendered a detailed portion, then repeated the process building layer by layer this new work. Unconcerned with any preconceived statement or refinement of an object I was led by this unique open-ended approach to produce a series of intense and highly active paintings that although stationary refuse to stand still. Due to the nature of what I sketched on my long walks the flavor of landscape couldn’t help but be present, however the driving force of this new work is founded in my search for the exact point where observational reality and abstraction can equally meet.
Michael K. Paxton
Michael K. Paxton is a well established Chicago based artist and sixth-generation West Virginian. He is also currently the subject of a documentary film Work at Hand released in 2018.
Awards include a grant from Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Inc., New York, Fellowship in Visual Art Award from the Illinois Arts Council, Fellowships with Air le Parc, Project and Research Center, Pampelonne, France and Jentel Artist Residency Program, Banner, Wyoming and a Marshall University 2013 Alumni Award of Distinction presented by the Alumni Association and the College of Fine Arts, Huntington, WV.
Major one-person exhibitions include Miami University Museum of Art, Oxford, Ohio, the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL, Loyola University Crown Center, Chicago, IL, the Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL, Laura Mesaros Gallery, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, and Linda Warren Projects, Chicago, IL, among many others. His most recent group exhibitions include On Big Drawings at the Averill and Bernard Leviton A&D Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago with supported in part by a grant from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, Between Rock and an Art Place, curator Robert Croker, The University of Georgia Lamar School of Art Gallery, Athens, GA, and Color Formed Space at Addington Gallery, Chicago, IL.
Other notables include a wall-size drawing installed in the Kirkland and Ellis collection, San Francisco. Publications included New American Paintings, Linework and Art and Soul that celebrated fifty of the most noted West Virginians in the arts. He was the sole juror for Union Images Exhibition, Chicago Cultural Center and the Mid Atlantic Foundation & Delaware Division of the Arts for the Individual Artist Fellowships: Works on Paper. Major commissions of his work include the 7th District Federal Reserve Bank, Chicago, Christel De Haan Collection, Zionsville, IN, John and Lucia Hollister Collection, Chicago, IL and Jensen Metal, Inc. in Racine, WI. His work is also in the collections of the North American Coal Company, Cleveland, OH, Media Process Group, Chicago, IL and Topin & Associates, Chicago, IL.
Michael is an adjunct faculty member of Columbia College, Chicago since 2005 and has a BA in Art from Marshall University, 1975 and an MFA in Drawing and Painting from The University of Georgia, 1979.
