OVerview
Award winning artist Michael Curry creates site specific wall sculptures constructed with innovative, three dimensional techniques. These hand cut mosaics offer kinetic appeal, melding both color and shape. Luxe materials such as silvered glass and acrylic resin are incorporated as they are ideal for interplay with light and the exploration of color projection, reflection, and shadow. Michael collaborates with curators, architects, engineers, and interior teams, to ensure that his works fit seamlessly into a unified design.
With his studio located in midtown Manhattan, much of Michael's work is focused in New York City and surrounding areas, including works on permanent display in the Empire State Building, the lobby of Jackson Park in Long Island City, and multiple Mt. Sinai Doctor locations throughout Manhattan. Regional works on public display include the lobbies of Miami's East Hotel and the JW Marriott Marquis, the AC Hotel in Vancouver, WA, and on nine floors of the ProMedica Generations Towers in Toledo, OH. Michael's works have been featured at MoMath: The National Museum of Mathematics in lower Manhattan and he has been a regular presenter at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show. His solo gallery exhibitions include a fifteen year retrospective at FXCollaborative, with past exhibitions at Gallery Plan B in Washington DC, and Club H in Manhattan.
Originally from the Chicago area, Michael received his MFA from Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory and began his career in the New York theatre arena. After a 15 year span that culminated in a long running Broadway show, his creative journey yielded inspiration that steered him onto the visual arts path.
ARCHITECTURAL ART: A RICHness of place featuring Michael Curry (EXCERPTs)
By: Sarah Muehlbauer for CODAworx Magazine
Working strongly with color, reflection, and inspiration from nature, Michael Curry creates unique mosaic wall sculptures for commercial, corporate, and private settings. With materials like silvered glass and acrylic resin, intricately cut and layered, these pieces exude luxury and finesse that creates a richness of place. It’s the kind of work you should view from many angles as it comes alive with light, changing form from each direction. There is a soothing repetition to the work, a kind of meditative appeal inviting mental reflection. Light is drawn in and fractured outward. Color and pattern create depth, illusion, and a mysterious science of light.
As a self-proclaimed “weird kid”, Curry’s childhood bedroom was his earliest studio, where he wrote stories and music, played many instruments, and created drawings and dioramas. Like many kids, he designed with Lincoln Logs, Legos, and PlayPlax blocks with total creative freedom. His earliest commissioned works were from a local schoolgirl who solicited drawings in exchange for candy. Somehow his future as a commissioned artist seemed more pre-destined than most, although in high school and college Curry moved towards music and theater. He obtained a graduate degree and went on to have a substantial career in performing arts, and eventually the Broadway stage. Curry spent years on the road touring nationally and internationally, living out of a suitcase as the performing arts often demand. Suitcases make little room for art supplies, and it wasn’t until he came home to NYC more permanently that his visual arts career took root.
Synchronistically, it was his performance work and the production of Cabaret that eventually brought things full circle for the artist. Curry moved back to New York for a run on Broadway, inheriting some furniture from a friend. This led to a midnight lightning strike of inspiration, to create a mosaic project out of an abandoned dining room table. When Curry reached out to his cast-mates in search of advice, he was directed toward Bobby Pearce, a regular guest of the Rosie O’Donnell show feature Craft Corner. Pearce taught Curry a few basic techniques to get started and donated glass tile samples to the project. The mosaic table was, and still is, the foundation of everything Curry does as an artist. It serves as his work table and sparked the growth of his second career.
Throughout the design and commissioning process, Michael Curry serves a collective vision and consideration of space. Everything is relational. Each project begins with questions, not assumptions. Curry creates myriad renderings to present his clients after opening up a democratic process that answers key questions: What is the existing color palette of the space, and how might that complement the client’s experience and desires? What is the foot traffic in the area? Where is the light? How do the conditions of the object’s destination affect the construction of the work? Glass is an “alive” material, expanding and contracting with the seasons. Each commissioned work is an investigation, a reflection, and a process.
In color psychology, every shade has meaning, a vibrational effect amplified further when combined with light. Color impacts our biology. Curry states, “I have always had an extreme reaction to color, both emotionally and physically and it often drives my mood and informs my decisions. When brainstorming with a new client, the color conversation is very important.” Each color contains its own unique signature, and these considerations make their way into Curry’s work, whether overtly spoken, or subtly understood.
Curry speaks of “biophilia”, the affinity between humans and the natural world, the literal “love for life” that drives us to interact with plants and animals. Biophilia is reflected in the work of Michael Curry, whose inspirations include rich natural phenomena like reflections on water, light, fire, sky, and clouds. Curry draws from fractal geometry, referencing materials of the earth. He translates skyscrapers into mountains, venerating the urban landscape as an extension of the human hand. Inherent in his approach is a fundamental curiosity and play.
Curry remarks, “Above all I am a curious artist: this is key for me: i.e. what happens if I make 900 of these beautiful mirrored blocks, stack them like so, and place them next to this window with southern exposure. Sometimes there is disappointment, but sometimes there is magic. And these are the creative moments I live for— when these ideas break through, it’s as if I’m not even there. Sometimes I dream these “what ifs” in great detail while I sleep and other times they come in an awakened flash out of nowhere— but this is what feeds me and propels me to find out what comes next.”