Michael Marlowe (b.1960)

Michael Marlowe is a studio artist, art director and production designer working in the film and television industry. Marlowe’s large-scale painting process takes an abstract approach to imagery that is rooted in figurative representation. His works examine and vibrantly animate aspects of the human figure from the inside out. Interested in various modes of self exploration, he visually abstracts and reshapes his subject in a pursuit to visualize the human form as something expanded, exploded, and restructured. “It’s the aspects of self we don’t show, the aspects of self we very possibly don’t know that make us tick. This visual deconstruction, this opening up, is in order to see around the parts we know, to discover the parts we don’t.”

The paintings are a meditation on my youth growing up in and around Cincinnati Ohio. This group of paintings reflects a journey back in time. A boy walking the furrowed fields of the southern Ohio River valleys looking for Indian artifacts with my older Brother Ted. Brother Ted became a respected Archeologist. And an expert on the black pottery of the native tribes of that Miami River Valley region. This show is dedicated to Brother Ted. The series of paintings titled “The Eden Park Series” is a kaleidoscope of times and experiences in and around that wonderful hilly city Park perched high above the City of Cincinnati. This storied park, with its views of the winding Ohio River far below, was a treasured destination. Eden Park is the home of the Cincinnati Art Museum, where, encouraged by our mother, we ill-behaved children would play the game of … “If there was a Fire…, what piece of art would you save out of this room and WHY”? It was the WHY that made all the difference… Forced us to look and speak and justify our greedy little choices. Over the years it was the formation of my art education. Other great buildings and companies in Eden Park are the Krohn Conservatory, The Playhouse in the Park, the famous Rookwood Pottery, and the Baldwin Piano company. Mount Adams, the village surrounding the park was a legendary hang for the local bohemian sceneAt the age of 15, I first saw David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” in the small art/porn house theater, Memorable! In a word, it was a safe place, Open with Wonder, it was a Zone of Magical thinking. In these paintings…it still is.