Page 12 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

Werner: You started at a young age as a pain-
ter. Have you changed your style? Did your
subjects changed? If so, why?
www.studiobrien.com
Michael: The themes of my earliest work were
from nature— forests, landscapes, water, etc.,
but also human scenes, faces especially. Then,
from 1976 onward I painted overtly religious
work almost exclusively, primarily Byzantine
iconography. As my art became better known
in Canada, church commissions came, and yet
often these would be Western churches asking
me to paint in a post-Renaissance style.

I saw the need for a regeneration of Western re-
ligious art, especially liturgical art, which had
fallen into banality and sentimentality during Werner: Is there a particularly noteworthy
the previous century and a half. I believed then, exhibition of your works?
and still strongly believe, that Christian art will
be revitalized by a rediscovery of what we lost Michael: Of the forty or so exhibitions since
in the catastrophic Schism between East and early 1970’s, all have been noteworthy for va-
West. I tried to paint in a style that integrated rious reasons, sometimes in large commercial
the strengths of both. Though I do paint in se- galleries, sometimes in church and university
veral styles, more and more, the mainstream galleries, and often in humbler places. After I
of my work became what one might call „neo- made a decision to paint only Christian themes,
Byzantine expressionism.“ My subject matter public and commercial galleries would no lon-
continues to be explicitly Christian work, and ger exhibit me. I have lost count of the times I
at the same time there is an ongoing exploration was told by galleries that they would be happy
of implicitly religious themes. to give me a show, if only I would change my
subject matter. I declined to do so.
Werner: How to you make a picture? From the For me, art is an act of love. Ambition and
initial idea to the finished product. concerns about reputation are a horror to me,
because these base instincts not only warp the
Michael: Much of my work begins in pray- creative intuition but they also deny what the
er. Interiorly, I “see” a concept or a “logos”, in essence of the vocation is about: To love. To love
other words a meaning. Gradually this inner in truth. To love in truth and beauty.
word grows into a form in my imagination One of the joys of my vocation is to make visible
that expresses the truth of the word. The form the invisible, to articulate interior realities, and
may be symbolic or literal, multidimensional to be a voice for the voiceless—in other words,
in meaning, or simple. As I develop the theme to express what is within us all, yet is so often
on my painting board, drawing it, expanding left unexpressed for lack of a “language”. Thus
it, erasing and refining, the clarity increases. the response of those who see my work, and
Then comes colour. All the while I am praying “hear” it deeply even as they “see” it, is very im-
for inner light, for what in Catholic theology we portant to me. I never am tempted to think of
call “co-creation.” The graces of co-creation are my painting as a career. I’ve grown indifferent
God’s inspirations working together with the to reviews in newspapers and magazines (there
human talents of an artist, creating a new visual have been many), though when I was a young
“word.” man they gave me a burst of hope that Christi-
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