Michael Marlowe is a master of multiple mediums, bringing a wealth of multidisciplinary experience in the arts together to create introspective, abstract works.
IIt’s not every day that a Buddhist Rinpoche visits an artist’s studio and sums up the meaning of his art practice in one sentence. But for Michael Marlowe, a Phoenix-based artist making cool, abstract art, this is exactly what happened.
“In a nutshell, what he said is that I paint what he preaches. That my paintings turn the body inside out to find self.”
The story begins when a friend of Marlowe’s was helping raise funds for a Rinpoche (a title in Tibet given to a religious teacher) and introduced him to Michael Marlowe. When he visited the studio, the Rinpoche was intrigued by the canvasses propped against the walls. “In a nutshell, what he said is that I paint what he preaches. That my paintings turn the body inside out to find self,” Marlowe explains. “I thought, wow, that’s so insightful. The conceptual idea of the work is all about that stuff we carry inside.”
Michael Marlowe grew up in a family of artists; his father was an illustrator, and a founding member of a local group called the Cowboy Artists of America. He grew up running around his father’s studio, getting early exposure to the creative world and different methods of making art. Before he would venture into making his cool, abstract art, he went to design school at the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP), and did his graduate work in printmaking at Arizona State University. After graduating, he was picked up by the Elaine Horwitz Gallery, the biggest contemporary gallery in Phoenix at the time.
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Early on I did a series of paintings based on his Six Nonlectures at Harvard.” Many of his works still reference famous poets, such as his Danse Russe series, after William Carlos Williams.
Michael Marlowe started showing extensively in Phoenix, but despite his in-depth training in the visual arts, he decided to take another direction, and went back to school to study theater. “Spending a lot of time in the studio, I wanted to do something more collaborative,” he explains. His background was always in a wide variety of creative arts, from his Bauhaus architectural studies at DAAP, to a childhood where he was raised reading extensively. “The conceptual side of my creative process comes from poetry, a turn of a phrase or the way something was expressed,” Marlowe says. “I love the playfulness of E.E. Cummings. Early on I did a series of paintings based on his Six Nonlectures at Harvard.” Many of his works still reference famous poets, such as his Danse Russe series, after William Carlos Williams.
To pursue the theater arts, Michael Marlowe moved to the ICONIC city of Los Angeles and worked his way through the ranks to become a production designer, all the while painting his own style of abstract art in his free time. “In theatre, there is a level of commitment, where the whole team pulls together; it’s an incredible collaboration and can be really intense,” he explains. “That’s really liberating as a young studio artist, and it probably influenced the way I work now. I don’t spend a lot of time contemplating, I just get in and paint. It’s a discipline, a real studio practice.”
While Michael Marlowe spent a number of years in LA producing, he returned to Phoenix in 2005, and has become at home working here. While Phoenix is not one of the more famous art cities, it has always had a solid artistic culture and continues to host thriving artists, including the captivating and contemporary painter, Niki Woehler. “There was a time in the late 1980s and early ‘90s where a group of artists had studios in one area in downtown Phoenix. There was never a sense of a school of thought, but there was community, and there still is. It’s a great place to work, and an easy town to live in.”
“When I was developing my style of work, I focused on the idea of abstraction and breaking things down into a new vocabulary, something fresh."
Marlowe’s work defies any kind of concrete categorization, but the forms that twist around his cool, abstract art paintings resemble something natural or biological, even body parts. He is a fast, instinctual painter: “I don’t spend a lot of time worrying, and when I need inspiration, it shows up.”
At a large scale, presented with various colors, the layers of his abstract art style takes on a dynamic feel. “When I was developing my style of work, I focused on the idea of abstraction and breaking things down into a new vocabulary, something fresh. I was playing with very abstract line work one day, and I thought, what would make this really active is body pieces,” Marlowe says. “I played with the idea of something bearing down on something else or penetrating it. I keep things somewhat recognizable but have them shift between botanical and biological.”
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Marlowe’s paintings lead the eye through an experience, synthesizing active and playful elements against a deep background. They can encourage an introspective experience, as the mind follows the winding tendrils and curling forms that never quite become recognizable. You can see influences from his printmaking studies, with deep backgrounds around the edge, with open, lighter colors at the center, and the top is overlaid with the organic-looking pattern. “The abstraction is very active and playful,” Marlowe explains. “One element in the painting is almost pursuing another element, and that’s happening in multiple places in different ways.”
Marlowe’s cool, modern abstract art is an immersion into the interior of the mind and the body. While his theatrical influence gives spark to his paintings, immersing the viewer on a journey into their own imaginations. Today, he’s even involved in the industry of architecture, making Phoenix all the more beautiful because of it.
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