www.harrydmichael.com |
Explorations in Oils |
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 During the
early '70s as I graduated from high school, I was deeply influenced
by the work of Salvador Dali. His work impressed me so much that
I decided to visit the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. I
was flabbergasted by the detail and huge output from this man.
I didn't want to emulate Dali, but rather just continue on with all
of these visions and such that were coming to me from various outside stimuli.
I have often wondered if Dali would have loved the fins of my pink
1959 Caddy protruding from the front wall of the museum, years before the
Hard Rock Cafe got the idea! |
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| "Moaning Lisa" is my version of Da Vinci's famous portrait. I was thinking about what if, on another planet, ideas of beauty were the opposite of ours. This is oil on panel, as are most of the paintings in this series. As the colors were blended, it almost created an airbrush effect, though I never used an airbrush in any of these oils. Using a fader and a fan brush, I could blend out all of the brush strokes, giving a very clean finish. |
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The Hawaiian Princess on the Pelican was just a neat idea. The wave was originally three feet high, but I tripled it's size in my mind. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Buddha on the Beach, when originally conceived, came from a dream I awoke from early one morning. I sketched down the original impression. It was me standing on a beach looking at this giant creature who had come out of the ocean and died on the beach. It was such a sad picture. I added the man, woman and child in order to give a sense of how big the creature was. |
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A New York City Sweep was painted in the mid '70s, long before the movie Independence Day ever came along. It illustrates the destruction of New York City, not by a bomb or nasty alien, but rather by a giant vacuum cleaner coming from outer space and sucking up the city! During this time, the Statue of Liberty was in total decay and was being renovated for the bicentennial. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Down at Sea This is just a whimsy of things that will scare the hell out of you when you are stranded at sea. There is a downed alien aircraft which the pilot has gotten away from. He is in the surf and these creatures are coming to get him. |
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The Slave Dancer is an oil on masonite panel. I had a vision of a slave girl dancing for all of these creatures. The figure was inspired by a waitress I knew who worked in Gainesville. All of the characters are sort of reminiscent of Star Wars, but this painting was done several years before the movies ever appeared. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Earth in the Toilet was a whimsical idea I had during 1971. Perhaps this was sort of the state of things back then..... |
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This painting is titled "Trapped". The octopus is about to envelop the downed space ship. There is a little frog character who is trying to get out of the escape hatch, but he gets stuck. Oil on panel. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The alien spacecraft with the rusted robot on the beach was reminiscent of my childhood in Aruba, watching the movie "Twenty Million Miles to Earth". |
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| The Butterdragon is set in the mountains on a faraway planet. Oil on panel. |
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Painter's Lament expresses what artists feel when they face a blank canvas. These are all of the little demons that taunt you in the creative process, while you are wondering "where do I begin". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Atomic Christ is a surreal image of the Crucifixion. Sort of in a Dali-ish theme. Oil on canvas. Note the atomic blood particles orbiting the head..... |
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