Entering Wilderness

This has been nearly two years in the making, a lot more if you count the slow, rambling brainstorming ahead of time. Thank you to Tim Robertson for pushing me to make this a reality and a big thank you to the artists who trusted me enough to go on this adventure with me…

Six artists backpack into the Daniel Boone National Forest together for three days and then make art in response

The show will open at Mellwood on August 9th and then travel to two other venues before the end of the year…

Mellwood - August 9 - Sept 2, 2024

Reception Friday August 9, 6:30-9pm

Georgetown College - September 26 - October 26, 2024

Reception Thursday, September 26 (time?)

Sojourn Arts - November 1, 2024 - January 5, 2025

Reception Friday November 1, 7-9pm

Photos, Text, and Podcast Production from Israel

Back in November 2023, shortly after the Israel/Hamas war began, I traveled to Israel and the West Bank with Mike Cosper of Christianity Today. The main purpose of the trip was recording interviews for Cosper’s podcast Promised Land. My job in that regard was just to occasionally hold a microphone and listen in to make sure it was working, but Mike was generous enough to name me the associate producer for the whole podcast.

I also produced photos and an essay for the Christianity Today print magazine. The essay, Empty Streets to the Empty Grave shares the experience of visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher when virtually no tourists were in Jerusalem due to the war. Working with their art director, Jared Boggess, was great. He really helped shape both the image selections and the text for the better. I had worked with Jared previously through showing some of his work as Fishcoin Press at Sojourn Arts.

Flak Photo's Spring Collection

I’m very glad to have a ‘Garden of the Garden’ image in Flak Photo’s Spring Pictures!: 40 photographers show us the season. It’s a really happy collection. Check it out - https://www.flakphoto.news/p/spring-pictures

Field Guide @ Intersect Arts (St. Louis, MO)

"Instructions for living a life: / Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.

—Mary Oliver

32 artists share insights and introductions, a “field guide” for living, transfiguring the unrecognized to the seen, the foreign to the known. In an era of ever-shortening attention spans, a field guide helps us not only differentiate and identify, it helps us look, deeply, and appreciate. It helps us to love.

Join Intersect Arts Center on February 13th from 6-8pm to fall more in love with the world around you. Attentive and knowledgeable chef William Pauley of Confluence Kombucha will craft a 5 course tasting menu responding to the exhibition. And, of course there will be a scavenger hunt!

Tickets can be purchased at: intersectstl.org/upcoming-dovetails

Intersect Arts Center is located at 3636 Texas Ave, Saint Louis MO 63118.

Metamorphosis: Lament

In the Weeds @ Houseguest (Louisville, KY)

on view 11/19/22 - 1/8/23

Camouflage has a long history of announcing and concealing meaning, people, and objects. It has its most obvious correlations to the military. However, it has been used by anyone from fashionistas to anti-fascist militias. houseguest is staging an intimate look at what camouflage means now. http://houseguestgallery.space/

Peace, Be Still @ Green Art Gallery (Biola Univ., So. CA)

on view Oct. 25 - Nov. 23, 2022

"Peace Be Still: Artists of Faith Respond to an Anxious Age" is presented by The Malcolm Initiative for Art in Evangelism and Missions at Biola University, in collaboration with The Center for Christianity, Culture and the Arts at Biola University, and Upside Down Gallery (a ministry of Jews for Jesus).

Although our lives are by and large well-provided for—most of us have enough food, money, clothes, and shelter to live well—we remain plagued by elements of human brokenness that we struggle to fully name. This show seeks to provide space for artists of faith to explore this concern—how does my experience of faith intersect with the lived reality of anxiety in my life and the lives of those in my community? We hope and believe that our faith will guide us in our quest to find solutions to our inner world. What happens though, when faith leaves us with questions we have yet to find answers to, at times thickening our experience of anxiety?

Participating Artists:
Mel Andrews, Zac Benson, Ella Buell, Janna Christian, Eden DeLaVara, Kari Dunham, Cheryl Dyer, Sydney Fox, Alicia Fregoso, Kristen Kim, Michelle Lum, Alyssa Haley Moon, Christa Norman, Jonathan Puls, Netanya Sigler, Hannah Stewart, Lisl Tulunay, Krystyny Vandenberg, Doug Webb, Laura Webster, Michael Winters

Atmospheric Perspective @ Intersect Arts Center (St. Louis, MO)

on view September 12 - November 6th, 2022

Atmospheric Perspective, a historic painting term,  refers to the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as it recedes into the distance. As distance increases, contrast and detail decrease, and colors of the object become less saturated and hazy. In this group exhibition, contemporary artists from all over the U.S. contemplate this idea as some render the landscape in a traditional sense, and others posit atmospheric perspective as metaphor for thinking about our environmental moment from varied vantage points. 

Come celebrate and grieve and contemplate and wonder at these many visual perspectives and join the conversation about what living in and caring for our world, together, can look like.

View the show catalog HERE.

FEATURING WORK BY:

Carl Aspenberg, Brandin Barón, Michael Baum, Raymond Bonavida, Joseph Canizales, Joe Cory, Jacob Cotton, Preston Craig, Thomas Crawford, Robert Creighton, Peter Cullum, Mark Dierker, Kendall Dorman, Jessica Dunne, Gigi Florek, Joan E. Gardner, Brittany Gilbert, Nick Gripp, C. Annie Hart, Annieo Klass, Arthur Koch, Cindy Konits, Gregory Lookerse, Kaitlin Merchant, Kristin Nalesnik, Mark Neumann, Michelle Paine, Collier Parker, Nancey Price, Britt Sondreal, Michael E. Stern, Jeff Tamblyn, G. Jackson Tanner, Eduardo Valdes, Emily Wilker, Michael Winters, Stefan Zoller,

Curated by Sarah Bernhardt.

GRIDS at Coram Deo Gallery, Omaha, NE

GRIDS is an exhibit of photo-based art by three friends exploring the filters through which we see and develop understanding. For each artist, pushing their visions through the grid of artmaking is part of a journey toward understanding and faithful living.

Join us for the Opening Reception: January 15th, 2022, 5:30pm INFO

Artwork by Jordan Lienhoop, Michael Winters, and Tim Robertson

'Picturing Community' @ Bellarmine's McGrath Gallery

Thanks to an invitation from Sarah Martin, my friends Tim Robertson, Jordan Lienhoop, Scotty Perry and I have photographs on view at Bellarmine's McGrath Gallery. The reception is Friday Oct. 8, 5-7p.m. Part of the Louisville Photo Biennial. On view through November 5, 2021.

Untitled, from Garden of the Garden by Michael Winters. 16x16”

The photographs I have on view are mostly all photographs of printed photographs made in my backyard over the last 2 springs. I'm calling them Garden of the Garden. Kind of silly, really. Tempered by a few black and white photographs of rocks.
Gallery info here.

Two pieces in traveling exhibit Time & Again

Mount Tabor, seen above, is where the transfiguration of Christ is thought to have occured. I stood viewing that scene in 2017. It looked so normal. I'm not sure why I felt compelled to punch holes in this photograph, but I think it's because I wanted to be able to see through this "normal" landscape to the glory of the transfigured Christ - which is to say - I wanted to see reality. 

This piece and the one below are expected to open in the exhibit “Time & Again” at CIVA’s office in Madison, Wisconsin on October 2, 2020. I was glad to be invited to participate in this exhibit curated by Asher Imtiaz, who’s been making great images documenting the protests in Minneapolis. The exhibit is then available for travel for 3 years. More info here.

When I made the original photograph for One Rock on Another (below), I was wandering around the desert in Utah. These rock cairns became symbolic of memories stacked up. At the time, I had some memories I wanted to get rid of. I imagined an art piece where I would remove the rocks one at a time and scrape the sandstone down to sand, letting it blow away. After some reflection though, I decided that wasn't right. It was better to simply add one more stone. Keep adding one more rock, one more memory. That's a better reflection of how I'd like to relate to time. Through routines and rituals our memories get stacked upon one another, and the past gets included in the present. 

One Rock on Another, 12x12”, inkjet print on transparency over copper in walnut frame.

New framed prints hanging at Quills Coffee Firehouse

Four large prints from "Head Bowed, Eyes Open" and six small prints from "Weekly Postcards" are now hanging at Quills Coffee Firehouse at 802 E Main St.  The big prints, 40x40" are all about the detail so I hope you can see them in person.  They'll be up now through the 1st Friday trolley hop in April.

art by Michael Winters hanging at Quills Coffee

Daily Pictures project in CIVA Seen Journal

I've been making daily pictures for 10 years now.  CIVA Seen Journal gave me an opportunity to reflect on that practice.

Click the image to see a couple more views.

Vice Creators Project writes up 'Where the Good Way is'

I never expected to be featured on Vice, but here it is - 187 Photos Map a Photographer's Love for Louisville by Sean Neumann.

CUTS picture in Ink & Letters

Ink & Letters published an image from the CUTS series in their Spring 2017 issue, In Black & White.

Alley Gallery

The Louisville Downtown Partnership has wrapped a number of doors around the city with images by local artists.  One of my photographs was chosen for a door at the corner of 7th and Jefferson.  You can see more images from the project at https://louisvilledowntown.org/alley-gallery/

"Jacob's Ladder #0351" by Michael Winters on a door at 7th and Jefferson, Louisville, KY

"Jacob's Ladder #0351" by Michael Winters on a door at 7th and Jefferson, Louisville, KY

CUTS book is now available

The book CUTS has been in process for a long time and now it's finally complete.  

It started in 2013 when I was struck by the title of another book: Pruning Burning Bushes by Sarah Wells.  By the time I got the book in 2014, it was exactly what I needed.  The poem Measuring Rings in particular stuck out to me.  The central image of a boy joyfully standing on a stump stuck with me and then one day the image appeared to me in real life.  My own son standing on - not exactly a stump - the hollowed out part of a giant beech tree which had two major trunks at one point, but which was now down to just one.  The poem, my son, my family history all came together in a clear moment.  

After that, my brother asked me to help cut down a tree in his back yard and I took walks in Jefferson Memorial Forest.  I made lots of photos of cut tree branches, but it took until 2017 to finally get it into book form.  I don't know why I procrastinated.  

But now it's here.  I only made 25 copies of this first edition so they'll go fast. Get your copy here - http://www.materialprintshop.com/new-books/cuts-by-michael-winters