LSD Magazine: Michael De Feo - ‘Coming in from the Outside’ UK Show

Tuesday, 1 March 2011

Michael De Feo - ‘Coming in from the Outside’ UK Show

Orange Dot Gallery
15 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9RG
www.orangedotgallery.co.uk
OPENING HOURS: Tuesday – Friday, 11–5 / Saturday, 12–4 / Sunday 12-4

The Orange Dot Gallery is pleased to present, Coming In From The Outside, an exhibition of ten, new silk screened prints by acclaimed New York street artist, Michael De Feo.

Widely exhibited around the world, this is Michael’s first solo exhibition in London and will feature for the first time, re-interpretations of his iconic flower image along with other new prints based on his drawings. All ten prints have been produced in small, signed and numbered editions on avariety of materials including maps and blueprint paper. One special, eleventh edition will be given away for free to visitors of the gallery on Saturday, March 12th.

Michael’s new prints are collaborations with master printmaker, Gary Lichtenstein. The pair first worked together in 2008 when the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum invited Michael to produce an Aldrich Edition to benefit the museum. Gary is widely known in the field and is presently working together with Robert Indiana on his HOPE series of prints and canvases. Best known in the street art movement for his ubiquitous flower image, De Feo has been creating illegal works on the streets of international cities for over eighteen years. Not limited to the streets, his canvas work has also appeared in galleries and museums around the world including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; MASS MoCA; Museo de Arte, Puerto Rico; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; the A3 Art Fair, Paris; Colette, Paris; Manifesta 7, Trento/ Trentino, Italy; and The National Gallery, Bangladesh, amongst others.

Michael has also been featured on the cover of New York Magazine’s “Reasons to Love New York” (three times) and participated in the Wooster on Spring exhibition at New York’s “Candle Building” which was one of the top-ten cultural events of 2006 as selected by Roberta Smith of the New York Times. In addition, Michael’s work has been featured in film documentaries, most notably Alice Arnold’s “To Be Seen” which was aired on PBS/WNET and screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2006. Most recently, Michael also makes a brief appearance in Banksy’s, Oscar nominated film, “Exit Through The Gift Shop”.

De Feo’s award winning children’s book, “Alphabet City: Out on the Streets”, employs New York City as his canvas - using his paintings glued on the streets of Manhattan to illustrate each letter of
the alphabet. It’s now in its third printing by Gingko Press. Newsweek International said, “De Feo’s art evokes beauty and optimism with a childlike simplicity while paying homage to gritty
Manhattan.”

Michael’s paintings and drawings frequently explore the archetypical themes of love, death, loss, conflict, and renewal. Gary Michael Dault of Canada’s Globe and Mail says, “De Feo is a fine,
inventive colourist, and his self-portraits glow with a richness that lends an art-historical stability to their convulsive immediacy.” Like De Feo’s international street art flower project, his paintings and
drawings have a childlike optimism while also examining more mature themes such as the ephemeral nature of all living things. Additionally, by installing some of his self portrait paintings
onto city streets he metaphorically places his inside, outside. Michael has installed these portraits on the streets of New York, Miami, Toronto, Buenos Aires, and Hong Kong.

Forthcoming for 2011, De Feo has a second solo exhibition in the A’P’art Festival in Alpilles- Provence, France, and group exhibitions in New York and Miami. You can explore De Feo’s work
at his web site: www.mdefeo.com

See Orange Dot Gallery for more info