Archived Exhibition

Michael Tole
What World Behind Those Ruby Eyes
January 9 extended through February 28, 2009
Reception for the artist: Friday January 9, 2009 - 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

Cain Schulte Gallery is presenting a major new series of paintings by American painter Michael Tole, whose subjects deal with the luxurious and the status symbol of consumer objects.  These exceptionally refined and glorious oil paintings continue this artist’s exploration of art historical technique combined with contemporary reference. Playing with the delicate balance between reality, photography, and painting, Tole reproduces symbols of European Feudal power, which he finds intriguing both visually and for what they represent as consumer objects and signs of class.  He transforms their likeness first into the digital medium of a photograph—at times blurred—then back into painting. The final paintings are even more baroque than the original objects. Tole renders his distinctive Faberge eggs in luscious oil paint, the reflective surfaces evoking the technique of historical masters painters of the northern renaissance, in which every piece is just as important as the focus, and in which the textures of his subjects are beautifully rendered, from the thick shimmer of enamel, to the glimmer of gold and the bright sparkle of jewel stones. And, while usually oil paint as a medium traditionally allows for thick textured brushstrokes and thin fine details to emerge, Tole paints in one single layer, thus letting the light come through the transparent pigments, to create a most luminous surface.
Throughout Tole’s compositions is a lively contemporary morphology of photorealism entwined with mastery, and the works triumph in the pure radiance and the astounding ability of his painting.

Michael Tole, born in 1979, Dallas, TX, received a BFA in Studio Art from University of Texas at Austin in 2000.  He has been awarded the prestigious Hunting Prize in 2007, and in 2008 he has been shortlisted at the London International Creative Competition.  This is Michael Tole’s first solo show with Cain Schulte Gallery.

and in the Salon:

OFER ROTEM
Stations

Ofer Rotem's drawings of European train stations explore social microcosms. The simplicity and starkness of the graphite marks the contrast of light on the great architectural structures in train stations.