MICHAEL TOLE

MICHAEL TOLE

The Most Dangerous Game -- Nymphs and Satyrs Edition, 2022

oil on canvas

48h x 72w in
121.92h x 182.88w cm

The Most Dangerous Game: Nymphs and Satyrs Edition, is a conflation of the short story by Richard Connell and the mythological trope of nymphs and satyrs. In, The Most Dangerous Game, two men hunt each other for sport on a tropical island, creating the most epic, most toxically masculine sport hunt possible. In the classical nymph and satyr trope, lusty satyrs chase nubile nymphs through the woods in a game that varies from playful to predatory depending on the artist. In this revision, it is the nymphs that do the chasing, and they have made common cause with the hunters' quarry to fully turn the tables on the hunter/satyrs.

Formally speaking, the painting is an experiment in creating emphasis using color intensity rather than value. The central focal point is distinguished from its surroundings by setting off hot, high intensity colors from a halo of cool pastels.

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MICHAEL TOLE

The Dissidents: Discourse on the Golden Mean, 2022

oil on canvas

48h x 64w in
121.92h x 162.56w cm

This work draws a connection between the didactic moralizing tendencies of Neo Classicism (represented in the style of the painting) and Modernism (represented in the architectural setting). Though modern art eschews the naturalistic imagery used by Neo Classicists, both movements pursued a self-important, austere, self-consciously masculine aesthetic that they saw as synonymous with virtue. Set in the MoMA courtyard, a passel of men lounge about, regarding a golden statue which looks terribly out of place in this modernist vitrine. The uncomfortable architectural setting, prisonlike and cold, provides a foil for the odalisque-like young men sprawled on hard stone benches and paying homage to the central idol.

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MICHAEL TOLE

Cleopatra, Having Reconsidered Suicide, Employs Asymmetrical Tactics, 2022

oil on canvas

48h x 48w in
121.92h x 121.92w cm

This painting reimagines the moment when Cleopatra contemplates suicide after her battlefield loss to Octavian. In this revisionist history, Cleopatra thinks better of suicide, and at the last minute redirects her servants to pass the basket of fruit with the asp on to the triumphant Octavian who sweeps in with his entourage. In this scene, Octavian reaches for an apple, triggering the asp to strike. This, like most of my recent work, reimagines historical, mythological, and literary motifs to destabilize the inherent power structures within those narratives. The style adopted is Rococo, which coincided with the rise of Colonialism. The style therefore relates to the historical narrative of this piece which shows the conquest and colonization of a colonial ruler.

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MICHAEL TOLE

Sea Gods, 2022

oil on panel

18h x 24w in
45.72h x 60.96w cm

My conservative, Church of Christ grandmother lived in a pristine little mid-century modern house in the middle-of-no-where, Texas. Its trim, Protestant exterior belied a decadent mishmash of sculpted chocolate carpeting, and gold gilt Rococo furnishings inside. Strewn about the living room walls were frothy little reproductions of pearly, 18th century goddesses frolicking amid forests and streams--mocking the clean modern lines of the room. These prints of Bouchers and Fragonards were so pretty, so decorative, so innocuous in their style that it didn’t occur to me until years later when I studied them in college that they were lesbian love scenes. In these anodyne fetes, young women roiled, breasts and bottoms abounding, gazed into one another's doe eyes, and caressed fulsome cheeks. Though overtly erotic, their style was so decorative and soft that even my religiously conservative grandmother experienced no cognitive dissonance between the racy content and her religious beliefs. I find this tension between style and content, fascinating. The trio of paintings: The Summit of the Gods, Sea Gods, and Modern Marlowe are an exploration of it. I am unaware of any equivalent all male scenes from the Rococo period. This appears to be an inherent bias within the tradition. With this work, I am trying to pry open the tradition and make a space the male figure as decorative--pretty. I say "pretty" instead of "beautiful" because the "beautiful" can be threatening or challenging. "Pretty" is a term we generally apply to unambiguously attractive, comforting, and accepted things: flowers, puppies, babies, etc. I want to know if men can be pretty in the same way those 18th century goddesses are. I think I’ve made a pretty good visual argument for that perception. I'll know I've succeeded if the next generation of grandmas can host their women's bible study group in a living room hung with these paintings.

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MICHAEL TOLE

The Aesthetic Martyr, 2019

oil on canvas

36h x 24w in
91.44h x 60.96w cm

This painting reacts to the John Berger quote: "Men act, women appear." This truism has been demonstrated in Western art countless times over the past two millennia. Second wave feminists, in particular Linda Nochlin, have expounded upon how Western art has turned women into passive objects of delectation. This is "settled case law," in my opinion, as in the opinion of most people. It is undeniable. However, the inverse of this truism has been little talked about...namely that Western art rarely allows the male figure to simply appear. The male figure, according to many art treatises, must always be active, virile, strong. The male body is valued for what it can do, not simply for what it is or how it appears. Among the few times the male figure is allowed simply to appear for aesthetic appreciation is when that male figure is dead or sleeping. Examples of this are Michelangelo's, Dying Slave, Girodet's, Endymion, any number of St. Sebastians and Pietas. This beautiful male nude is immobilized and dying, thus permitting him to express his aesthetic value for the first time.

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Michael Tole

A Coalition of Willing Goddesses Topples Mars, Commonly Known as A Death of Sardanapalus, 2018

oil on canvas

60h x 44w in

A Death of Sardanapalus is a revisionist history in which I reimagine the fall of the last Assyrian king, famously portrayed by Delacroix. In my reimagining, far from being passive victims, Sardanapalus's concubines are about to perform a coup de gras, without him suspecting a thing.

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Michael Tole

Diana Contemplating the Sublimity of the Paleo Diet, 2018

oil on canvas

40h x 30w in

This is a meditation on the curious relationship that has developed between contemporary body goals, the current perception of our "natural diet," and the impact that diet may have on our environment.

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Michael Tole

The Concert, 2017

oil on canvas

48h x 72w in

The Concert appropriates and marries two disparate art historical references, Titian's, The Flaying of Marsyas, and Barbara Kruger's, You Construct Intricate Rituals Which Allow You to Touch the Skin of Other Men. This piece seeks to probe the source and nature of our discomfort with the nude male body. In our culture, the male body is rarely displayed as an object of beauty. When it is, it is automatically described as "homo-erotic," a term that implies that it appeals only to a niche audience, and denies its relevance or potential appeal to society as a whole. To avoid our discomfort, male nudity must always be contextualized into a narrative of fighting, dying, struggling, or making. There is no male equivalent to the beauty pageant.

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MICHAEL TOLE

Study Hippo, 2019

charcoal on paper

18h x 24w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Study of Triumph of Venus and Galatea, 2015

oil on birch ply

30h x 44w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Study of Nymphs of Nysa, 2017

oil on primed paper

18h x 24w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Dog Fight II, 2016

oil on panel

24h x 30w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Dog Fight, 2016

oil on panel

24h x 28w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Blue Dogs, 2015

oil on wooden panel

24h x 30w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Study of Lions, 2015

oil on birch ply

24h x 28w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Floral I, 2015

Oil on birch ply

30h x 24w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Fight 2, 2013

oil on canvas

60h x 160w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Elipse 1, 2012

oil on panel

42h x 60w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Elipse 2, 2012

oil on panel

42h x 60w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Two Torsos, 2012

oil on canvas

55h x 41w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Head, 2011

oil on canvas

30h x 30w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Red and Blue Men, 2010

oil on canvas

60h x 40w in

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MICHAEL TOLE

Untitled (Four Eggs and Carriage), 2008

oil on canvas

60h x 80w in

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Pull Quote

"I explore the evolution of gender norms, power dynamics, and representation within Western visual and literary culture and what this implies for the negotiation between aesthetic pleasure, justice, and our culturally specific discourse on beauty."

MICHAEL TOLE - Artists - FERRARA SHOWMAN GALLERY

Biography

M I C H A E L T O L E | | | biography

[lives & works – Tempe, AZ ::: b. 1979, Dallas, TX]

MICHAEL TOLE is a figurative painter currently living in Tempe, Arizona with his wife and two daughters. Born in 1979 in Dallas, Texas, he graduated from UT Austin with a BFA in painting in 2000. A year later, he became the youngest artist ever represented by Dallas’ Conduit Gallery where he showed for 15 years. For the first half of his career, he created photo-based paintings of retail interiors that explored issues of class and the relationship of painting and photography. After relocating to Tempe, his work experienced a significant shift to fantastical figurative inventions based on pop culture imagery he has encountered via his two daughters’ taste in music videos, as well as his new proximity to the twin capitals of America’s fantasy industrial complex - Hollywood and Las Vegas. The new work attempts to contextualize their brand of Disney-esque hedonism within a broader historical view of Western visual culture. Tole has been exhibited nation-wide, including New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, and New Orleans. He has won several grants, including the $50,000 Hunting Art Prize, and the Kimbrough Grant. His work has been reviewed in Art Forum International, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, and Hi-Fructose.

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Artist Statement

In my current work, The Revisionist Histories, I am writing letters to art history, literature, and mythology in an attempt to reflect the social changes that have reshaped our society over the past century. As part of this agenda, I explore the evolution of gender norms, power dynamics, and representation within Western visual and literary culture and what this implies for the negotiation between aesthetic pleasure, justice, and our culturally specific discourse on beauty.

The seed for The Revisionist Histories was sewn when I caught a glimpse of my preteen daughters watching music videos on their iPad as I chopped veggies for dinner. Out of the corner of my eye I caught glimpses of music videos featuring Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, and Doja Cat gyrating across the tiny screen. A better parent might have snatched the iPad away, but I was overcome with hallucinatory visions of this pop diva pantheon dancing through the painted ceilings of Versailles and countless Bavarian Chapels. Watching these videos, I observed that they employed an aesthetic that rested comfortably within Baroque and Rococo parameters, exhibiting chiaroscuro, ostentatious displays of wealth, over-the-top emotionalism, fantasy, self-aggrandizement, pastel color schemes, gender fluidity (a trait more Rococo than Baroque), and heaping piles of conventionally attractive young women in provocative poses. The new themes of female agency, diversity, and inclusivity were unquestionably positive additions to Western visual culture, yet some of the similarities between Katy Perry and Fragonard left me feeling conflicted about our culture. After all, it was only a generation ago that many critics called out the Rococo as the exemplar of frivolous and exploitative decadence. So what does it mean that its aesthetic conventions are now ubiquitous in media, especially media created by women? Since that initial revelation, my research has expanded to include the broader fantasy industrial complex, from Hollywood and Las Vegas, to advertising and social media. Through their conflation of art history, mythology, literature, and pop culture, these paintings attempt to sus out the implications of the observable ascendancy of various art historical conventions currently being used.

We may not normally consider the genre of teen pop music videos and TikTok posts to be fodder for philosophical reflection, but the fantasies they create reveal truths about us, and those truths deserve our conscious consideration. To explore this, I set out on a mission to master Baroque and Rococo pictorial rhetoric, believing it to be the best vehicle to explore the continuity and disjuncture between art history and 21st century Western visual culture. I intend to create paintings that can hang side by side with old master works in a museum that, viewed at a glance, do not stand out from their neighbors, but upon further inspection begin to reveal to the viewer those aspects of culture that have evolved, and those that have remained the same over centuries, inviting comparison, analysis, introspection, and perhaps a chuckle.

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Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION

2011 MFA, Painting and Drawing, University of North Texas, Denton, TX

2000 BFA, Studio Art, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

GRANTS/AWARDS

2021 Grand Prize: NO DEAD ARTISTS International Juried Exhibition; Ferrara Showman Gallery; New Orleans, CA

2021 $500 Grant; California Open Juried Exhibition; TAG Gallery; Los Angeles, CA

2022 London International Creative Competition; Shortlist; London, UK

2010 London International Creative Competition; Shortlist; London, UK

2008 London International Creative Competition; Shortlist; London, UK

2007 Hunting Art Prize, $50,000 Cash Award, Hunting Ltd. Houston, TX

2006 Kimbrough Grant, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2022 Revisionist Histories; Ferrara Showman Gallery; New Orleans, LA

2013 It Was the Body Which Despaired of the Body; Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX

2011 Blessed With all the Thunder in the World; Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX

2010-2011 Struck by Lightning More Than Once, She Didn't Yield; Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, TX

2009 The Poniard Twists…My Mutiny; Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX

2009 What World Behind Those Ruby Eyes; Caine Schulte Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2007 Some Queer Noisy Pendulum; Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX

2004 I Think I Prayed For You To Come, But Wasn’t Prepared For The Reality; Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX

2002 Conduit Gallery Project Room, Dallas, TX

GROUP SHOWS

2022; Art Miami Art Fair, Miami, FL

2022 Folly; Figure Ground Gallery; Seattle, WA

2022 Art Market San Francisco Art Fair ; Ferrara Showman Gallery, Booth A01; San Francisco, CA

2021 NO DEAD ARTISTS International Juried Exhibition; First Prize; Ferrara Showman Gallery; New Orleans, CA

2021 California Open Juried Exhibition; TAG Gallery; Second Prize; Los Angeles, CA

2021 Not Another Art Fair, Shockboxx Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA

2021 Madre, Shockboxx Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA

2017 Benedictine University Faculty Show, Lisle, IL

2016 Benedictine University Faculty Show, Lisle, IL

2015 Schism, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH

2014 Benedictine University System Faculty Show, Lisle, IL

2012 University of North Texas Faculty Show, Denton, TX

2012 The Medium is the Message, UT Arlington Gallery, Arlington, TX

2011 Dallas Art Fair, Dallas, TX

2010 Next Chicago, Chicago, IL

2010 Inaugural Group Show, Caine Schulte, CA

2009 Dallas Art Fair, Dallas, TX

2008 The Art of Describing, Gallery 10G, NYC

2008 Aqua Wynnwood, Miami, FL

2007 Red Dot, Miami, FL

2002 Stephen F Austin State University, Nacodoches, TX

2001 500 X Gallery, Dallas, TX

PRESS/PUBLICATIONS

Vices Catalog, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2021

Correra, Caitlyn, Michael Tole, I Like Your Work Podcast, August 18, 2021

Smith, Andy, Michael Tole Re-Imagines Mythology in Paintings, hifructose.com, January 16, 2018

Granberry, Michael, Art Notes, page 4E, Sunday, March 27, 2011

Artists and Galleries, Galveston Monthly, January 2011

Wiley, Rachel, Galveston Arts Center in Exile 2, page 19, November 2010

London International Creative Competition Annual Catalogue, January 2010

Carter, Steve. Unrealistically Speaking, Dallas Modern Luxury, page 56, November 2009

Baker, Kenneth. Photo-realism at Caine Schulte, San Francisco Chronicle, page E2, January 2009

London International Creative Competition Annual Catalogue, January 2008

Odom, Michael. Michael Tole at Conduit Gallery, ARTFORUM, page 476, September 2007

Daniel, Michael. Guide Live, Dallas Morning News, Guide page 20, May 25, 2007

Gaile, Robinson. The Creative Life, Fort Worth Star Telegram, May 13, 2007

Michael, Granberry. Irving painter wins $50,000 prize, Guide Live, Dallas Morning News, page 2, May 2, 2007

Tellez, Leslie. Five to Watch: Artists on the Verge, Dallas Morning News, May 30, 2007

Anspon, Catherine. Good Will Hunting, Paper City Magazine, page 6, July 2007

Mitchell, Charles Dee. Michael Tole at Conduit Gallery, Dallas Morning News, June 2007

Patricia, Johnson. Irving artist wins prestigious award, Houston Chronicle, April 30, 2007

Terranova, Charissa. Paintings by Michael Tole, Dallas Observer, September 30, 2004

Painting the Town, D Magazine, page 30, September 2002

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

21C Museums, Louisville, KY

CCH Pounder, New Orleans, LA

Keith Fox + Tom Keyes, New York, NY

Thomas + Dathel Coleman, New Orleans, LA

Dallas Country Club, Highland Park, TX

Ted Pillsbury, Dallas, TX

Stanley Light, Dallas, TX

Sam and Catherine Basharkhah, Dallas, TX

John and Muffin Lemak, Dallas, TX

Carter Tolleson, Dallas, Tx

John Reoch, Dallas, TX

Ted Kincaid and Steve Atkinson, Dallas, TX

Cord Martin and Thom Armistead, West Columbia, TX

Jeff Estes, Dallas, TX

Helen and Charles Nixon, Dallas, TX

Mark and Barbara Ashworth, Dallas, TX