BIO
Reflecting his training as a scientific illustrator, Michael’s live art is a field guide to the beings that emerge through live music – the boundary-living electric winged spirits that crash into being through a dancing throng, and to be seismograph and portraitist, swaying to their breath. Each work emerges from the throb of the house and crowd into cross-sections of fireworks and undersea faeries, closed-eye tessellations and luminous fossils…vivid scenes of unabashed intensity, verdant and exultant work written in the language of dreams.
Since November of 2007, Michael Garfield has set up easels in a legendary range of situations, from raging basement clubs to NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Airfield to New Year’s raves in the Costa Rican rainforest – both onstage and off, and alongside internationally renowned visionary artists Alex & Allyson Grey, Robert Venosa, Martina Hoffmann, Mark Henson, Android Jones, Amanda Sage, Oliver Vernon, Mars-1, Kris D, and J Garcia. In addition to countless festival appearances, including Sonic Bloom, Rootwire, Desert Rocks, Art Outside, Rothbury, Trinumeral, Wakarusa, Electric Forest, Bear Creek, Motion Notion, Gem & Jam, Global Sound Conference, and Geoparadise…and he has held live art residencies for the Trilogy Lounge in Boulder (2008), the Mondrian Hotel’s Pere La Chaise Lounge in Scottsdale (2009), and ActionPacker Pro Productions in New Orleans (2010). Michael also acts as de facto journalist and organizer for a growing live art community, leading festival live art teams and gathering an ongoing interview series, The Field Guide To Live Artists.