Michael Gunn is a Providence based artist and educator originally from rural northwestern Pennsylvania. Often working between various drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture methods simultaneously, his practice is in a constant state of transition not dissimilar to his subjects. Each piece is built from a collection of studio fragments used as reference—cyanotype plant negatives, figurative studies, stream of consciousness drawings, flower bouquets, found photographs, material fragments, appropriated color palettes, or whatever else finds its way into the windowsills and corners of the studio. Psychic spaces, still lives, and bodies with heightened color, strong geometric compositional style, and queered transcendental iconography are set into action inspired by passages from his diaries and poems detailing his relationship to the Allegheny river. Growing up exploring the tributaries and forests just beyond its banks—the strip mines, iron furnaces, and abandoned industries are seen slowly dissolving and eroding back into the landscape which reclaims them. His pieces often depict cloudy and ambiguous narratives that only partially reveal and pay tribute to sites of intimacy queer people utilize as they come of age in rural places when isolated from safe communities. His entangled subjects experience intimacy as hallucinatory contemplations and distanced recollections as a means of protection. The images illusion of simultaneous material states highlight poetic forms of communication and voyeurism that exist in collapse, collection, arrangement, display, and personification of the environment, ephemeral partnerships, and the nonliving.

Michael graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Painting in 2024. He has gone on to exhibit work in various exhibitions at ODD-KIN, WWFA, and other local venues. As a student he finished a fellowship at the RISD Museum with the Contemporary Curatorial department. He was a co-curator and exhibited work in an exhibition titled “Living Urn”, in Gelman Gallery, was included and won honorable mention in the PAC “College Biennial”, and has been included in various group shows during his undergrad. In 2023, He completed a residency with the Royal Drawing School at Dumfries House in Scotland, UK, and is now included in the Prince’s Foundation Collection. He currently works at ODD-KIN as Gallery Assistant and at School One as an Adjunct Drawing Teacher.