Written by Anna Itkonen
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Michael Wolfe is a painter, photographer, designer, and conservation picture framer working and living in the picturesque Castlemaine in Victoria. Art has always been a part of his private and professional life. Still, it wasn’t until five years ago that painting and photography became the main focus of his energies and creativity.
Michael Wolfe
“I take landscape photos with industrial buildings like grain silos and water towers. Photography, for me, is about scale, the quality of the forms and the relationship between black and white,” Michael said. “I also like to work with multi exposures. It creates an expressionistic quality; the lines are a bit blurred, and it plays with our understanding of what is photography and what is painting. Photography, for me is more conceptual and pushes at the boundaries of what we accept as real and true.”
Cutting, Barkers Creek II | 185 x 65cm, Acrylic on canvas
“I spend quite a bit of time driving. I take photos, walk and sketch. I love the openness and the beautiful distances around where I live, and I never tire of the rolling hills, granite outcrops, rhythms, textures and colours,” he described. “I tend to explore themes and find a spot I am really drawn to. I do not want perspective, so I flatten everything and bring it to the front. I look at the landscape through gesture, mark and colour.”
Lost Horizon I | 101 x 101cm, Acrylic on canvas
Michael uses a combination of accidents, the relationship between marks and colours and most of all, gesture and energy when painting. “I can easily work for eight hours on a painting and get nowhere or spend two hours and be nearly done.” He works spontaneously in phases and comes back to a painting days or weeks later. The paintings are built layer by layer, with the first phase being ‘the bones of the painting’, and each layer is a little bit thicker in paint and more refined in form and detail.
Ten Foot Hill III | 93 x 93cm, Acrylic on canvas
Michael Wolfe has exhibited widely throughout his career. He has had over 30 solo exhibitions, the first being back in 1988. He has been part of many more group exhibitions, including the 2020 Bendigo Art Gallery survey exhibition (Con) textural Landscapes, the 2021 Ballarat International Photo Biennale and the 2020 Experimental Print Prize at Castlemaine Art Museum. He collaborated with renowned Australian author Alex Miller in the Now and Then exhibition in Shanghai, China, and has been a finalist in Art Prizes such as the National Photographic Portrait Prize and the Manet Portrait Prize in 2022 and the Australian Photography Awards in 2019.
Half Moon Bay I | 122 x 122cm, Acrylic on canvas
Michael’s artwork Under A Turbulent Sky is our cover on the 2023 annual Art Lovers Australia Collectors’ Book
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