Art of Michael Newberry
Exploring
light, love, and life.
Adam and Eve, Idyllwild Home of Christine Hunt.
Exploring
light, love, and life.
Adam and Eve, Idyllwild Home of Christine Hunt.
"The purpose of art is to give us wings."
"Without art, the grind of daily life would be unbearable."
"Beauty in art is one the few enduring creations in human existence."
"To fight postmodern art one must offer an evolutionary alternative."
Is your home your spiritual retreat, your temple? See more ...
Michael Newberry has been pioneering figurative art for over four decades with his unpredictable brand of beauty. Using pigments and a surface he probes inner workings of the human psyche and depths of light. Some of his notable paintings are Denouement, Icarus Landing, Puccini, Manhattan at Night (with the Twin Towers), and his current Arabesque Lovers' Series. He has exhibited in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, New York, Rome, Athens, and he will have an upcoming show in at the White Cloud Gallery in Washington D.C. in the fall of 2017. Read more ...
Idyllwild Icarus
oil on canvas, 60 x 46 inches
As a young boy, Icarus had dreams that started with flying inside his bedroom, looking down at the two beds and windows. As he got older the flying expanded beyond his walls to far away countries and beautiful places. He learned from the best flyers how they used light and air currents. He became intoxicated with his capacity for flight. The moment he became an adult he flew across the ocean seeking Atlantis. He flew higher and higher without a care for landing. He saw magnificent purple mountains, shimmering towns, green and rust-colored valleys, and cobalt seas. He couldn't find Atlantis so he flew higher still, beyond the stars. Instead of the blustering illuminating light of the sun, he had entered black emptiness, void of life-giving energy. "This won't do," he said. So he turned back to the blue glowing Earth noting that the Sun needs to shine its light on people, land, and seas to give each other meaning. As he returned to Earth he spied a pale shimmering granite outcrop rising up from a pine-covered hollow with a distant arid-colored and peopled valley beyond; he choose to gently land on that peak. He had found his Atlantis, known by some as Idyllwild.
Winter
oil on canvas, 36 x 30 inches.
The blush of flesh against a frosted forest.
What constitutes the movement of energy in a static painting? Color vibrations, forms, or depth? Or all of them?
Do we not all turn ourselves into artworks?
Wearing their art on their sleeve.
Idyllwild, California
Pulse
24 x 20 inches, oil on canvas.
Waves of bristles flowing around the neck and chin.
I have learned a great deal from my art student Chan Luu. She is the renowned designer. Abstract realism is something she introduced to me, For an upcoming Fall show at the White Cloud Gallery in Washington, D.C. I am creating a series upclose works.
An exciting thing about being an artist is actively engaging in kinesthesia -- transcribing differing senses into visual terms. In this case flow. I think of flowing water, waves or energy moving in currents over time. Painting is static, it freezes a moment, but I like to think I am capturing something of an ongoing movement.
One of the muses for this project is Georgie Leahy, a lovely person inside and out. She is fearless and will go to the ends of the Earth to make art projects come true.
This is the the 2nd completed of the trio.
The model, Katie Bolin, is local to Idyllwild, the land of honey, granite, artists, thinkers, and kind people. She contacted me about making a painting and that she was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and would I be interested? "Yes!" was my reply.
Katie and I discussed beauty and pregnancy, and we came up with this neo-classical pose that reminded me of the Graces from the Renaissance.
When she first posed, I noticed a beautiful blushing quality to her skin, and I am most happy with I think I succeeded in getting that in the painting.
She came with her mate, Ivan Ellirand, a photographer, and he took reference images along with some candid shots in my studio.
.The quietness of listening to a lover's heartbeat beats louder than voices.
The touches that form euphoria.
What does the sound of the rustling petals look like?
Almost impossible not to thinking of the erotic symbols of an opening the phallic nature of the petals.
A wonderful part of painting is being calmly focused on one brush stroke at a time. A close up of a rose lends itself to this zen-like process.
Musk
oil on linen, 22 x 28 inches.
Unfolding layers of delicate petals
Puccini, pencil on paper, 16 x 19 inches.
This drawing came about from a discussion with a friend about how great a composer Puccini is, and he wanted the original oil painting, which is not available and I offered to draw this based on the 1984 painting. The collector said the drawing brought him to tears. My first work of 2017.
October 19, 2016,
pencil on paper.
Examining those who would lead us by their service.
The Collector
oil on linen, 60 x 50 inches
The moment when a collector feels the sensuality of an artist's work and allows it to enter his consciousness. .
Dancing petals through space leaving shadows behind.
Silly and happy blooms.
La Vie en Rose
oil, 25 x 19 inches.
What a difference a blush makes
Adam and Eve
oil on linen, 72 x 92 inches.
What is the initial thing, the spark, that launches an epic love story? A glance?
Unbearable Lightness of Being
oil on canvas, 36 x 58 inches.
Enveloping release.
Emerging
oil on canvas, 46 x 42 inches.
Before there was the Origin of the World there was man.
Live
oil on linen, 42 x 36 inches
Where does identity end and art begin? Can you look back at a song, movie, or artwork and think about how that work influenced you, how it helped shape who you are? Those influences rarely manifest themselves explicitly, though with tattoos one turns oneself literally into a work of art.
Rob
oil on linen, 28 x 22 inches.
Gaze, intake of bredth, and focus, and focus more.
The Poet
oil on canvas, 42 x 36 inches.
Bridging thousands of years from fragile creations to the future.
Whispers
oil on linen, 7 x 6 feet.
From my heart to your ear, from my touch to your thought, where I end and you begin.
Flow
oil on linen, 24 x 36 inches.
Interwoven air.
Glass Vases
oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches.
Pulling up lights and marks from the depths to bing against the surfaces of the glass.
Three Jars, an Orb, and a Wood Coconut,
oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches.
We start the race, along the way climb obstacles, getting to know them pretty well, but finish far away with nothing else to bump into.
A Pearl Among Folds
oil, on linen, 3 x 4 feet.
Unfolding details the more we go forward.
