Michael Conlan

Artist’s Statement

The landscape, as artistic subject matter, has helped shape how Americans view their land and their national identity. Artists have long been engaged in the cultural construction of our nation, utilizing the artistic tropes of myth, idealization, glorification, and the mundane in their depictions of the land. From the Hudson River School’s depiction of the transitional relationship from wilderness to an agrarian society, as in Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow, in its celebration of western expansion. To contemporary artists who glorified the American West, like Stephen Shore’s American Surfaces, exploring and celebrating the everyday. The tradition of exploring place visually has helped shape our cultural identity and continues to be an important subject matter with historic and contemporary significance.

Conlan’s interdisciplinary studio practice draws upon this American landscape tradition yet focuses on his personal relationship with the Northern Plains.  His connection to the prairie of the Northern Plains is a thread that runs across media and many bodies of work.  Whether it be the abstracting of the landscape motif down to its basic formal properties or emotive investigations of the figure, Conlan’s work centers around the idea of place and his relationship with the “prairie”. 

The subject of Conlan’s work primarily focuses on the region’s vernacular motifs and historical depictions of the openness of the prairie landscape. The vast prairie landscape and its multifunctioning horizon line serve as a transitional element that acts as both a separation and a unifier.  A celebration of the horizon line within a field of white is a recurring theme I employ in multiple bodies of work.  The abstraction of the horizon/transitional line allows me to explore the landscape in nontraditional means, by employing formal studies of making and conceptual meaning. 

Conlan’s work is conceptually tied to the landscape and its use historically, but visually, the work is heavily influenced by Minimalist artists.  Abstracting the landscape through the formal use of line, color, space, and form lends itself to sculptural investigations while breaking down the expectations of what the landscape is or can be.   The work deliberately distills the concept of the landscape motif down to its basic properties as it visually walks the line between the abstract and the non-objective. 

MFA, Visual Art - University of North Dakota

BFA, Visual Art - Portland State University