The Paintings
Mike's paintings moved viewers by their colours, beauty, poises and the drama behind the practice and technique. They are imprints of the moment. If anything at all they are the beauty of spontaneity played out like an abstract video onto the canvases. You can almost see as they were, the emotion, the energy, the struggles and pain before the final outcome of the paintings are presented to the viewers.
Many of this series of paintings have stained-glass effect as if there is a light source under the layerings. This effect is largely contributed by the techinique of removing large amount of paint that were originally poured and thrown onto the canvases. The paint removed were later stored in glass bottle. Now the unwanted paint took on a new form, they were no longer unwanted but remembered. Past emotion is documented and questioned.
There is a sense that the canvases were never large enough for Mike's works as the paintings looked and felt boundless. Yet within the splashes and among the layerings are pockets of illusionistic space. There would be the wild and almost violent used of orange, yet there would be splashes of green that silently sits in the midst waiting to be discovered. One can't help but felt a sense of solace when one cast their eyes on the pockets of relief. They are glimpses to something more.
