Michael Armstrong Art
Where experience and reality coaless
In his art practice, Mike has developed distinct themes and a unique style for creating art from life. Best known for his nude portraits of veterans and friends, Mike's practice has extended to figurative sculpture in bronze and resin to bring his work to life.
Observers of Being by Michael Armstrong
Oil on Linen
" I feel enormously privileged to engage in conversations, to hear about interests, share ideas, aspirations, and fears. To be entrusted with a story and to witness vulnerability.
The Military
"My 23 years of military service shaped me as an artist and as a human being, but it's not everything that I am"
"I'm an artist who has obherent knowledge of how to kill"
The impact that our lives have on us is that our experiences change the way we perceive. It adjusts the lens, for better or for worse. And so here I am with this relationship with the nude body, which I love, that for 15 years, my focus was on how to destroy it. Literally, I was trained to know how to efficiently and effectively end a life. When I returned from Afghanistan and Iraq, I looked at these forms and thought, how can I have them just be the aesthetic things they were before? That was the challenge, back then. I wrestled with the notion of how I could get back to just them being beautiful things on a wall.
"The knowledge of how to kill another human being is not knowledge that is easy to live with. There's a tension that occurs"
Nudes
Sculpture
Contemplation (2016) by Michael Armstrong
Bronze
Handfinished Victorian Ash Plinth
An exploration of lyrical form and an intentional pause. Single cast bronze, this one-off unique piece sets a tone of rigidity and deep inner thought as hard and soft textures meet.
The Toll (2016) by Michael Armstrong
Resin, Patina
Hand-finished Red Gum
Defined by expressive gestures, The Toll represents authentic emotion. The suggestion of staining reflects the impact of the external world and the struggle for individual expression. Detailed brushwork aligns with experience, materiality of paint equates to stagnation, inertia and destruction.