Michael Gregory: Five Hundred Miles

John Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by California-based artist Michael Gregory. Five Hundred Miles marks Gregory's tenth solo exhibition at the gallery, and will be on view July 12 - August 25, 2012. John Berggruen Gallery will host a reception for the artist on Thursday, July 12 between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. to coincide with the San Francisco Art Dealers Association's First Thursdays.

 

Gregory's paintings, icons of the American landscape, radiate a contemporary old master look. His images of barns, silos, and prairie farms have become a signature subject for the artist. The title of this exhibition Five Hundred Miles refers to the road trips the artist takes to gather his images of the Midwest and West, and also honors the famous folk song by the same name. These paintings are visual composites of these trips, re-imagined and re-constructed in the studio. Gregory strikes a balance between beauty, hope and despair; and the loneliness of the Western landscape. As Gregory explains, "My paintings are collages made up of personal observation and experience, art history and interests that extend beyond the formal language of painting. While I love paint, the act of painting is subservient to the picture which stands for the idea."

 

Michael Gregory was born in Los Angeles in 1955. He received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1980, and currently lives and works in the Bay Area. In 2011, The Fort Collins Museum of Art in Colorado organized an exhibition of Gregory's work entitled Western Construct, which traveled to the Butler Institute of American Art and the Arvada Center of Arts and Humanities. Gregory's work is included in many private and public collections including the Delaware Art Museum, the Denver Art Museum, Microsoft Corporation, General Mills Corporation, Bank of America, and the San Jose Museum of Art. The artist's work has been shown at museums across the country including: The Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; The Boulder Center for the Visual Arts, Colorado; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; the Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee and The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio.