View Cart
Primary Style: Realism
Credentials: Self Taught
Career Level: Full Time, Career Artist
Experience: Mature Artist
Juried Artist: Yes
Represented by Galleries: Yes
Painting and Photographing the Ozarks and Middle America For three decades Garry McMichael has been traveling the back roads of Middle America - especailly the Ozarks, capturing its beauty with the camera, charcoals, pencil and pastels. Garry is constantly searching for those fleeting moments when the landscape, the atmospheric conditions and the ever changing light come together in a flash of visual inspiration.Whether you are inspired by the ebb and flow of the Mississippi River, a quiet walk through the rugged Ozark mountains, or watching a summer thunderstorm roll across the Kansas plains you will appreciate the art of Garry McMichael. Enjoy.A FEW COMMENTS ON MY ART AND MYSELFI’ve been an Artist since the day I could scribble with a pencil or a crayon. I have photos of myself with a Kodak Brownie hanging around my neck when I was six. I took my camera everywhere. I discovered a camera in my hands was like wearing a coat of armor. Photography helped me to overcome my shyness, and develop relationship skills that many people don’t learn until later in life. Most important, photography also helped me to develop a life-long love for the outdoors, nature and the Missouri Aand Arkansas Ozarks in particular. Today the Ozark landscape is an integral part of my pastel art. It is one subject I never get tired of painting. Our clear running streams and green-forested hills are a treasure to behold as well as a challenge to paint. When I was young my artistic inspiration came from nature and living in the heart of the Ozarks. But now, much of my inspiration comes from my family, friends and fellow artists. I’v come to realize there is as much beauty in my backyard, or downtown St. Louis as there is in a thousand acres of forest-covered hills. When I was a young photographer I was greatly influenced by the nature photography of Eliot Porter. The Hudson River School artists still heavily influence me. I would dearly love to have experienced the forested Ozarks back in the early to mid-1800’s like the Hudson School Painters experienced New England and upper New York. The works of George Innness and Asher B. Durand especially impress and influence me. When it comes to capturing the color of the American West few artists surpass Thomas Moran. I’ll never forget the first time I saw one of his original western sunsets at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. I was stunned by its depth of colors . Among contemporary painters I’m particularly influenced by the highly original pastel techniques of Bill Creevy and I greatly admire the originality of Richard McKinley. What is my proudest artistic accomplishment? Why my next one, of course. I don’t live in the past. I want to keep learning, experimenting, playing and pushing my art and myself.
Autumn Fog on the Gasconade River Autumn Fog is not inspired by single photograph or single memorable moment. It’s an image captured over time on the thin emulsion of my mind from hundreds of float trips and thousands of photographs taken on the rivers and streams of the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks. Some paintings I really have to work on, but this one just poured out of me.Because pastels are fragile materials all my painting are placed behind glass in quality frames. The cost of the framing is already included in the painting price. If you prefer, I will sell the pastel unframed. For unframed paintings deduct 10% from the painting cost.