Michael Atkinson – DigitHall Gallery

Evening Light – Lithograph

Biography

Contemporary Colorist

Michael Atkinson born in Texas in 1946. He started painting as a child in the northwest Texas town of Lubbock. Attracted early to the study of architecture, he earned a degree from Texas Tech University, then taught and worked in the field for a time. He soon realized that he was most drawn to the design and presentation aspects of his profession. In the summer of 1974, he took time off to concentrate on his painting.

The response to his work was so great; he made the decision to paint full time. A painting by Michael Atkinson is immediately recognizable by its composition He feels that watercolor permits spontaneity and freedom and can be made to do things on its own utilizing texture, density of color, variation of light and dark.

White space is also an essential element of the “Atkinson look”. In addition to his dazzling medium of watercolor, Atkinson demonstrates his excellent artistic ability with beautiful bronze sculpture. His bronze pieces mirror the electricity of his two-dimensional work, earning a grand reception from his legions of collectors.

Brilliant use of color and design has won Michael Atkinson international acclaim… but that has not stopped this native Texan from continually exploring reality through new media and images of the mind and heart

From his Smoky Ridge studio in Austin, Texas, Atkinson seeks to “capture the emotion – be it subtle or exaggerated,” a pursuit that has been in evolution since he started painting as a child in the northwest Texas town of Lubbock.

Attracted early to the study of architecture, he earned a degree from Texas Tech University, then taught and worked in the field for a time. He soon realized that he was most drawn to the design and presentation aspects of his profession, and in the summer of 1974, he took time off to concentrate on his painting.

“I rented a beach house and began to develop my own style, which has slowly evolved into what you see today,” he says, nothing that the response to his work then helped make the decision to paint full time.

From the first, his art has reflected his training, experience, and wide ranging interests, as he creates images – buildings, oceanscapes, animals, Southwestern landscapes – through a unique set my abstract style and the mastery of watercolors “spontaneity and freedom.”

His subjects and style have also been influenced by other artists such as Jason Williamson, Frank Howell, and Gerald Bromer, and whose work he first noticed “how white space could be used effectively to enhance the images.”

White space is an essential element of the composition that characterizes the Atkinson look, yet as Atkinson explains, “The white is not empty. It is completely finished.” Treating the paper as an element of design, the artist works from one concentrated area of detail in color, leaving much of the paper white and allowing the eye to focus on the central image without intrusion from the periphery.

The white space is defined and given direction by Atkinson’s signature birds which either sweep towards the center of interest or decrease in size is they go back into the painting, drawing the eye into or out of the painting, and thus completing it for the viewer.

“Collectors take what’s in my paintings and use it to get their imaginations going, then they weave a story around the space I have left,” Atkinson says.

Atkinson admirers and collectors have enthusiastically embraced his work over the decade. Quickly sold out, his pieces have been selected for public collections throughout the United States and abroad and are found in such distinguished private collections as those of Burt Reynolds and Malcolm Forbes.

Now represented by galleries in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and California, the artist continues to express stories of contemporary yet lasting value through brilliant use of color in form. And the appeal of the unmistakable Atkinson look has never been stronger.