HEAVEN AND EARTH COLLECTION
Up and Down: Michael Stolzer's luminous "Heaven and Earth" paintings are the standouts in an otherwise only mildly satisfying three-person show at Louis Stern Fine Arts. Landscapes distilled to a low horizon and occasional silhouetted trees, Stolzer's paintings feel like dense dramas played out solely in terms of darkness and light.Painted and oil and alkyd on wood, their streaks in drift honey-gold skies conjure uncontrollability of natural phenomena such as fire. The wood-grain pattern of the panel seem to contribute to the fluidity of the skies, which at their loosest, look like brushed-on photo-emulsion or layers of varnish. The extremity of their darkness and intensity of their light lift these images beyond representation to the level of metaphor
- L.A Times
Heaven and Earth Collection
GROUND ZERO COLLECTION
**This series of paintings as well as the following text were created prior to the tragedy of 9/11/01. After witnessing these events first hand, I could not return to the studio and look at these images. The subsequent attribution of the term "ground zero" to the World Trade Center site further convinced me that these works could no longer be seen as I had originally intended. When I finally could confront walls covered with these images, I returned only to take them down and seal them in a box I constructed for them. This is where they remain.
The destruction of preconceived ideas and unworkable paradigms of reality is not only an end result of human evolution and scientific and artistic revolution, it is also a necessary preliminary.
While a literal interpretation of the imagery in these paintings suggests nuclear explosions, it is also my intention that they serve as metaphors for another kind of destruction; Constructive destruction if you will, the destruction that accompanies all creation. Destruction needed to avoid human annihilation. Back in June of 2000 I titled this series of paintings "GROUND ZERO". The apparent reference being the point of contact of an atomic bomb. A metaphoric personal reference, however, is much more significant in the context of my originally intended meaning...
...We are, each of us, GROUND ZERO. Within us is the center of power to destroy ways of thinking and being, that impede our evolution as individuals and as a society. We are each the starting point.
The paintings are oil and alkyd on plywood and range from 24"x24", to 48"x48". They have a very smooth satin surface, lending a quality of sensuality and tranquility that creates a tense dynamic between the beauty of the object and the apocalyptic image. There is a visual connection with photography, though they are in no way photographic, and are painted in very much the same way as the earlier, ongoing series, "Heaven & Earth", as described in the enclosed review from the LA Times.
