Chris Michael

I have been an artist, musician, songwriter for the past 35 years while teaching art in public schools in both Union and Mecklenburg Counties. I attended Wingate University, studying art for a semester in London through the Wingate in London program, and graduated in 1989 with a degree in Art Education. In my spare time I pursued an alternate career in the music business and was signed to independent Jam Records recording label all while being a regular guest on the nationally syndicated Bob and Sheri Morning Radio Show as Cool King Chris for 20 years. My creative focus was like a wide angle lens which incorporated so much that my work often flowed intensely from medium to medium or from performance to music and even video production. It was not until the forced seclusion of the Covid Pandemic that I finally became more focused in art and began to sell my works on Etsy and in various local shops in Charlotte NC. Much like my pixelated paintings and collages, hindsight is 20/20. The further away you get from a moment, a time, an era, the more clearly it comes into focus. Ironically the pixelated works are influenced by the artist Chuck Close, where up close the work may seem abstract, but walk away and look back, it becomes clear. Now that I have retired from public education, I can see more clearly than I ever have before. As long as I don't lose my glasses.