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About Michael... Michael Maxwell is an artist, educator and certified trainer of neuro-linguistic programming. He is interested in the cognitive and psychological sources of art, their relationship to myth, ritual, and religion and the ways in which art and sensory experience in general affect those cognitive and psychological domains in return, shaping and molding what we consider to be "reality". His studies in art history, anthropology, psychology, and NLP have made him interested in questioning and perhaps redefining cultural assumptions and beliefs about the nature of our existence on the planet. He was born and raised at the crossroads of America where I-40 and I-35 intersect in Oklahoma City. He has a degree in Art History from the University of Oklahoma where he studied with Edgar Heap of Birds, and an MFA from Rutgers University. At Rutgers he came into contact with performance art and began working in a wider variety of media investigating his own psychological and perhaps spiritual concerns. There he worked closely with Peter Stroud, Geoff Hendricks and Raphael Montanez Ortiz. He has also studied with Richard Bandler and John Lavalle, two of the premier masters of NLP in the world. He is currently the director of visual art at The Peddie School in Hightstown, NJ. He has been instrumental in trying to bring an expanded awareness of contemporary cognitive research into the field of art education and education in general at the school. He teaches classes in studio, digital, video and performance art. He has spent the last several years out of touch for the most part with the contemporary art scene. He has instead focused on researching and making work rather than showing. He is at a point where he once again feels that it is necessary to begin sharing his work and ideas. He has exhibited and participated in shows both nationally and internationally.
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Artist's Statement... What affect does a particular type of sensory information have on the human mind and body? How do you organize sensory information to produce a certain effect? What types of effects, or states are able to be produced and what are they useful for? How do you get to the other side? What is the other side? Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? - Gauguin A young boy asked an old man holding a candle " where does the light come from?" What do we know now that our ancestors never did? And what can we do that they never could? What have we forgotten that they knew very well? What could they do that we no longer can? What can happen when the two come together? I read a lot about cognitive science, shamanism, and Sufism.... hypnosis, and Nuero-Linguistic Programming, education... art. I think the world is in the midst of powerful changes unlike anything in human history. I think there are many directions that this change can take. I wonder about which ways are the best. I try to understand myself as part of a species in the midst of a major evolutionary step. Something is happening, Something is coming... slowly but surely changing while we watch, it is happening in a way that we hardly notice. Something tells me this. I am trying to do my part in this. I try not to take anything too seriously, and I also think there are serious matters at hand. Not everything is a joke, but laughter is very very important. Maybe my work needs to make people laugh more. I also want to help people see something else. I want to see something else. Something else good. I want to wake up. I want to be a Man. Cynicism and intellectual critique, are not enough. It is a time to build. To open up a new way... At least to lay the foundations. Starting with myself. These are the types of things I think about lately. I think everything is going to be Ok. I hope that when you sit in front of my paintings, that you begin to feel the other side. The other side of yourself, the other side of human culture, the other side of your mind, the other side of the cosmos...perhaps. I think it is where we came from and maybe where we are headed, I think getting in contact with it, is the first step. Then what...then what? I have some ideas but I am not sure. I like when Richard Bandler talks about ideas... ideas that are going to bring food and warmth and medicine and joy and laughter into this world. Maybe we can even build a bridge into the next right here. |
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:: Heather Freeman :: |
:: Lydia Grey :: |
:: Jim Jeffers :: |
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