Michael Eble Biographical Profile Michael Eble was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He received a BFA degree in painting from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a MFA degree in painting and drawing from the University of Mississippi, in Oxford, Mississippi. He is currently an Associate Professor of Studio Art and HFA Gallery Curator at the University of Minnesota at Morris. Before relocating to Minnesota, Michael spent a year as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Mississippi and also served as an Instructor of Art at the Memphis College of Art in Memphis, Tennessee. Over the past years he has shown his paintings, drawings, and prints in numerous regional and national exhibitions. Eble was a recent recipient of an Imagine Fund from the University of Minnesota, Graduate School, Office of the Vice President for Research through the support of the McKnight Foundation. He was also a recipient of a Residential Fellowship in the Fall of 2008 from the Institute for Advance Study at the University of Minnesota. He has also received additional grants and research funding from the McKnight Foundation, Lake Region Arts Council, Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, Vermont Studio Center, and has received travel and research awards, from the University of Mississippi and the University of Minnesota.

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Statement for PAN

The element of water and its relationship to humans and the environment has been a consistent theme through my creative research. My paintings reflect the complex and disturbing dialogue between humans and natural bodies of water. The ephemeral quality of these fragile environments and there relationship to all living things inspire me. I use layers of color, patterns, shape, texture and mark making to address issues of beauty and loss, time and transformation. Residing somewhere between realism and abstraction, my paintings become visual diaries upon which I record responses to the threatened landscapes and estuaries.

During the summer of 2009, I traveled and resided in Louisiana with the research support from the McKnight Foundation/University of Minnesota Imagine Fund. While in residence, I researched the growing problem of coastal erosion and wetland loss affecting Louisiana. My fieldwork encompassed viewing these at-risk areas of land from a number of different perspectives and documenting them through digital photographs. In the studio, Working from the digital photographs, I produced paintings that mirrored the visual relationship between land and water.

My current paintings were initiated during a 3-week artist residency along the St. Croix River valley. I attended the Artist at Pine Needles Residency Program in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, which is funded through the Minnesota Science Museum. During the residency, my work was greatly influenced by my interaction with the river flow and the surrounding landscape along the St. Croix River. My approach to these paintings greatly differed from earlier works that took on a more traditional approach in working from the landscape. The natural environment along the St. Croix and the river itself made me reflect on the power of water and it's continued consistency of flow. In the beginning stages of each panting the imagery was quite literal, but through the powers of suggestion and ambiguity these images evolved into complex abstractions.

The formal components of making images continue to serve as my guide and tools for producing a new works. It is the relationship between these basic components that has allowed me to investigate themes of water within a flat decorative space. The layered forms, complex striping, cropped shapes, diligent mark making allows me to invent a personal language. It is through my paintings, that I hope to provoke the viewer to become visually literate to his/her own environment and begin to contemplate their relationship within that environment.

I am interested in Project Art for Nature because of the collegial spirit of the artists involved in the program. I am also very interested and inspired by the PAN's unified theme of environmental stewardship. I am also in search of building a support system of artists to share my work with, while also learning about there own work. This I feel has been a void in my creative career since moving to the Midwest in 2003. These are the reasons I am interested in becoming a member of PAN.