Sheelagh bevan biography of michael

As a Canadian artist living in the US, I am both an outsider and a passive participant in our current political climate. I feel an urgency to address issues of class, power, and privilege through my work, while also treading carefully to avoid co-opting the experience of others. Instead, I approach my ideas through a tender provocation, asking myself how I can express a critical perspective that is nevertheless a positive and hopeful contribution. 

Animals are complex surrogates in my work, as I navigate both my desire for connection to the animal world and an awareness of the power humankind exerts over our animal fellows. My portraits of animals offer an intimacy customarily reserved for human images and attempt to present these subjects with dignity, humor, and agency on a par with human portrait subjects.

This painting of Jesus was commissioned. The client had a detailed vision of the picture he had in mind, and we had a humorous working title: Hot White Jesus. To my mind, through that title, we were acknowledging the inherent historical hegemony of representing Jesus as white and were creating an image that also tipped its hat to Christ as an often unacknowledged erotic icon. Painting Jesus in a contemporary context felt both anachronistic and subversive, all the more so because of my client’s Christian faith, which was infused with his queer aesthetic and a genuine love of Jesus. Below is a brief selection from an interview I recorded with him (here called “D”):

D: I wanted to bring together these things that are very different, but that I love with the same intensity and fervor, that are seemingly discrepant, just to pack them all together because they all have the same source.

M: A handsome white Jesus holding a lamb is an iconic image, particularly in Christian pop culture, so we’re touching on that visual history in this painting. Our painting also reminds me that my interest in beau

The great painter Henri Matisse was also a great book illustrator. A pioneering member of the Fauves, a supreme colorist, a remarkable draftsman, and a creative genius: this is the Matisse known and admired by everyone with even a passing interest in modern art. But few know Matisse as an artist who designed and illustrated his own books. From 1912 until his death in 1954, he engaged in nearly fifty illustration projects, many of which rank among the greatest artists' books of the twentieth century. A master printmaker, equally adept in various media, he ensured that his prints would appear to best advantage in conjunction with the printed page. He directly participated in page layout, typography, lettering, ornament, cover design, and even the choice of text. More than any others of his rank and stature, he knew the principles of visual communication and perceived the potential of letterpress printing.

Graphic Passion recounts the publication history of nearly fifty books illustrated by Matisse, including masterworks such as Lettres portugaises, Mallarmé's Poésies, and his own Jazz. It is the first comprehensive, in-depth analysis of his book-production ventures and the first systematic survey of this topic in English. Drawing on unpublished correspondence and business documents, it contains new information about his illustration methods, typographic precepts, literary sensibilities, and staunch opinions about the role of the artist in the publication process.