Sorcha Dallas

Michael’s work mainly incorporates sculpture, but also involves other such medium as film and digital imagery. His sculpture work involves materials varying from denim and plastic, to aluminium and paper. The titles of the works correlate to the sources he has referred to when developing and creating each piece. The sculptures appear to be character’s confined in a system of places and events that are invented to make use of as members of a fictional landscape that mirror a make believe utopian space, which is both uncluttered and single-minded, opposite with the space we inhabit. The visual style of his sculptures are very modern in feel and appear at first easy on the eye but become systematic and thought provoking as the viewers eye works its way out. The sculptures are an open book, no themes are being immediately exposed, the viewer is being openly challenged to find their own way around them and make their own decisions. We the viewer are a prowling cat at a saucer full of secrets. But ultimately before us is a white space where art and science meet: A pure and uncomplicated contemporary urban landscape. Like the essence of film, Michael is creating an alternative universe, a universe where he is the bureaucrat and is able to create character’s that fit within his philosophy which he is not object to tell us. These all combine to create a feeling, a state of mind, a dream of a life that may or may not actually exist. He sees that it is within his creative desire and the desire of art itself to create new things, new objects, and then ultimately new desires. The gallery is his view finder, a blank canvas that needs to be filled with new shapes. These sculptural landscapes for him highlight the possibilities that can be explored within the art foundation. But Michaels is always aware of the fact that baggage is never far around the corner, and any underlying theme can be uncovered. It’s a question of waiting and finding. Because every now and then something new will appear. Let’s just sit here for a while and see what happens. That’s the way art works. Lonely. Scary. Promising. Inevitable.