Michael Markowitz

Michael Markowitz puts the world of representation and the world of abstraction into every work. His focus is always on capturing the energy of a gesture that is the momentary and immediate expression of someone’s life force. In his private drawing studio in San Francisco, he teaches this: not just technique, but this way of seeing past the extraneous to the ‘mark’ that captures a moment. He is a self-taught artist with a literature degree from UC Santa Barbara. His drawings are a collaboration with what is being seen (generally another human) and also with the process of drawing itself. The drawings thus represent a philosophy, what Markowitz speaks of as “the effort to live in a way that is not circumscribed by the desensitizing effects of habit, formula, assumption, and ridigity” and as an “exploration of a deeper level of connection and intimacy that seems to elude us in many other aspects of living.” He exhibits in his studio and with the Paul Mahder Gallery.