Michael Gray
When he isn’t travelling to Europe or South America, artist Michael Gray is travelling around the United States to teach university students what he is passionate about: Art. From a young age, Gray had an interest in painting, beginning with a trip to London. There his grandmother took him to the National Gallery, and he lost himself in the Impressionist paintings that hung on those hallowed walls.
Gray says it was “the spirit of the artists that still resonated there” that drew him to the paintings, not just the mastery in the pieces themselves. Since that trip, Gray considers himself to be a soldier in the battle between artist and canvas. He is constantly learning more about how to beat his canvas into aesthetically awe-filled, meaningful submission.
Gray is known in Charleston for his colorful landscapes, and he rarely paints anything else. “If there’s one thing I want people to know about me,” says Gray, “it’s that I have a passion for making paintings, but more importantly I’m passionate about the environments I paint.” Gray paints the vanishing spaces, creating a permanent record of what was once pristine and untouched by man.
“I also paint for individuals,” Gray specifies. “My paintings are for personal spaces, made for one person to love and live with.” The quiet magnificence of his work is meant to speak to the viewer in a way that isn’t necessarily groundbreaking in the painting world, but Gray is content for his painting to contribute to someone’s personal happiness.
“My grandmother called them ‘whisper paintings’ because she said she couldn’t stand close to one without being quiet,” Gray recalls. That kind of relationship a person can have with a painting is a good enough reason for him to paint, and that’s why Gray made the challenging choice to live by painting. He’s been doing so since 1994, and as he told Art Mag, with a martini in hand, “I’m living a great life!”
You can see Gray’s work at his studio on Broad Street.
words: Cara Beth Heath
Lambert-Gray Gallery
54 Broad Street
843.577.7101
lambertgraygallery.com
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