MICHAEL TICE
DREAMSCAPES

A Retrospective

Now showing through July 3

Michael Tice, who exhibited widely during his 35 years in New York City before returning to the south, opens DREAMSCAPES: A RETROSPECTIVE at Craven Allen Gallery on Saturday, April 24th.

Tice uses his luscious color palette and love for line and pattern to conjure hidden narratives of the American Dream, exploring themes of innocence—and its loss. “My work has evolved and changed over the years, from early works which were rooted in a kind of domestic surrealism, to a more complex exploration of sexuality and gender roles.”

The artist paints instinctively. “My work often has a dream-like quality. I’m concerned with fluid thinking and decision making during the process. Intuition is important; I hope to surprise myself. I never fully plan a work, but rather let it evolve and change as I go along in the process of creating.” The paintings on display have been created over four decades and show his mastery of a variety of media, including acrylic, pastel, charcoal, watercolor and gouache.

Michael Tice received a BFA from the University of South Carolina, a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony, a fellowship from the SC Arts Commission, and has done graduate work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and at New York University. He lives in Carrboro.

STATEMENT

“Art is there to poke holes in reality—to let the magic back in.”  Caroline Casey
“If I knew the meaning I wouldn’t have to do the work—I could just write it on a card and hand it out.”  Laurie Anderson

The dreamy psychologically charged human figure has been my primary subject. I work in a variety of media, including acrylic, pastel and charcoal, watercolor, and gouache. My work is inclusive and paradoxical in scope, using images from everyday life–art history, popular culture, children’s books, found photographs, patterns, personal symbols, and often text fragments or written commentary—mixing and containing the dualities of abstraction and representation, the geometric and the painterly, the graphic and the intensely coloristic.

ABOUT MICHAEL TICE

Tice received a BFA from the University of South Carolina, a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, a Fellowship from the SC Arts Commission, and has done graduate work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and at New York University. He lived and worked in New York City for 35 years, and now resides in Carrboro, NC.

While in New York, Tice exhibited widely, including solo shows at the 55 Mercer Gallery, Sensory Evolution Gallery, the Gallery at Flamingo East, Lucky Strike Gallery, and also at Time & Space, Ltd. Solo exhibitions outside New York include the University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL, and the Aiken Center for the Arts, Aiken, SC.. He work has been featured in several curated exhibitions in New York at The Painting Center, Fashion Institute of Technology, The Durst Organization, Margaret Bodell Gallery, George Billis Gallery and in other group shows at Exit Art, Sara Meltzer Gallery, PS 122, New York University, Ceres Gallery, Leslie-Lohman Foundation, Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center, Artist’s Space, Lower East Side Printshop, Times Square Lobby Gallery, Westbeth Gallery, Elsa Mott Ives Gallery, La Mama Gallery, Bess Cutler Gallery and the Gracie Mansion Gallery among others. Tice’s work has appeared nationally in group exhibitions at the Stroud Foundation, Philadelphia, PA, the Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC, the Weatherspoon Gallery at UNC, Winston Salem, NC, the French Library and Cultural Institute, Boston, MA, the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, the Stamford Museum of Art, Stamford, CT, and the Minnesota Museum of Art in St. Paul, MN. His work is found in numerous corporate and private collections.