FRESH WATER, ANCIENT SPRINGS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF SMALL MYSTERIES | THE PAINTING OF MICHAEL ONKEN

Members’ Preview | Saturday, February 20 | 6:30 to 8:30 pm

Gallery Admission: $5 per person | Cedarhurst Members Free (children 10 and under free) | All admission is Free each Thursday

Michael Onken’s art may look terribly out of place in today’s super-hyperbolic, digitized world. The paintings purposively utilize a faux-naive style coupled with subject matter that appears seemingly melodramatic and perhaps even dangerously nostalgic for days of yore, these paintings in fact plumb the depths of the human condition and may yet function as aesthetic catalysts for social progress.

The paintings of Michael Onken are narrative, or at least narrative fragments. They are like a single frame taken out of context from a film. They imply a story. Yet, the “story” is not always, or even often, evident. What makes these narrative fragments so intriguing is their familiarity. We seem to recognize the story, even though we cannot place it. The paintings are like seemingly familiar stories from our unconscious. Onken’s narrative fragments from “long-ago” suggest paths reconnecting us to nature and ourselves.

[excerpt from Literary and Allusive: The Painting of Michael Onken by Rusty Freeman, Cedarhurst Visual Arts Director]   

Photo Gallery images by Daniel Overturf, Professor – Photography, Department of Cinema & Photography, SIU-C

Cosponsor: WDML 106.9 FM