Michael Tole

Study of Triumph of Venus and Galatea

2015

Michael Tole is a figurative painter currently living in Tempe, AZ with his wife and daughters. A Texas native, most of his 20 year long career was spent in Dallas. After relocating to Tempe, his work experienced a significant shift from photo-based paintings of retail interiors to fantastical figurative inventions based on pop culture imagery he has encountered via his two daughters’ taste in music videos, and his proximity to Southern California and it’s particular brand of Disney-esque hedonism. Mr. Tole’s career includes shows in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, and Miami. His work has been reviewed in Art Forum International...

Michael Tole is a figurative painter currently living in Tempe, AZ with his wife and daughters. A Texas native, most of his 20 year long career was spent in Dallas. After relocatin...

Carlton Scott Sturgill says of his work... As a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, sculpture, collage, and installation, my work takes many forms and incorporates a w...

Michael Tole says of his work… This work draws a connection between the didactic moralizing tendencies of Neo Classicism (represented in the style of the painting) and Modernism (represented in the architectural setting). Though modern art eschews the naturalistic imagery used by Neo Classicists, both movements pursued a self-important, austere, self-consciously masculine aesthetic that they saw as synonymous with virtue. Set in the MoMA courtyard, a passel of men lounge about, regarding a golden statue which looks terribly out of place in this modernist vitrine. The uncomfortable architectural setting, prisonlike and cold, provides a foil for the odalisque-like young men sprawled on hard stone benches and paying homage to the central idol. In my current work, The Revisionist Histories, I am writing letters to art history, literature, and mythology in an attempt to reflect the social changes that have reshaped our society over the past century.  As part of this agenda, I explore the evolution of gender norms, power dynamics, and representation within Western visual culture and what this implies for the negotiation between pleasure, justice, and our culturally specific discourse on beauty.    The seed for The Revisionist Histories was sewn when I caught a glimpse of my preteen daughters watching music videos on their iPad as I chopped veggies for dinner.  Out of the corner of my eye I caught glimpses of music videos featuring Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, and Doja Cat gyrating across the tiny screen.  A better parent might have snatched the iPad away, but I was overcome with hallucinatory visions of this pop diva...

Impressionistic style painting of a beach scene that could be anywhere in the world. Deep hues. Acrylic and oil on Acrylic mounted on metal. The artist paints both sides to create unique depth. Finished with enamel to prevent yellowing if placed in the sun. About the Artist: Stuart Yankell...

Coronation of Venus, 2021 Oil on Panel with 24k Gold Water-Gilded Frame, 114 x 78 inches “Coronation of Venus,” an ornamentally enriching piece from the studio of Justas and Vilius...

A professor of painting at Southern Methodist University since 1984, Barnaby Fitzgerald spent his childhood in Italy where he earned a printmaking degree in Urbino. He received a BFA...

Venus and the Sea Monster Large Mythological Oil on Canvas — Sculpture Rendered in Painting By American Artist Philip Melville Courtney This large-scale oil on canvas painting presen...