Written Reviews
60 WRD/MIN Art Critic at University Galleries Normal, IL 3/24/16 1:33PM
Michael Wille
Sharp angles puncture. Michael Wille’s trio of small paintings, titled “Echo Hill” and “Front Street” for the studios in which they were scrupulously crafted, contain dozens of triangles, many of them honed enough to hurt. But not all. Some are squared off at the tip into parallelograms. Wille, who paints as much with an X-acto knife as with an aerosol can, tape or a brush, has multiple means of blunting the shapes that fill his canvases. Noticing these forms and the impenetrable dozens or even hundreds more beneath and atop them is part of the point – and the pleasure – of looking. The muddled edges of Wille’s paintings, which in their layers and drips exceed the canvas in both directions, concur. Can’t find something worth gazing at, and then something else, and then something more? Boring is on you.
-Lori Waxman
Michael Wille
Sharp angles puncture. Michael Wille’s trio of small paintings, titled “Echo Hill” and “Front Street” for the studios in which they were scrupulously crafted, contain dozens of triangles, many of them honed enough to hurt. But not all. Some are squared off at the tip into parallelograms. Wille, who paints as much with an X-acto knife as with an aerosol can, tape or a brush, has multiple means of blunting the shapes that fill his canvases. Noticing these forms and the impenetrable dozens or even hundreds more beneath and atop them is part of the point – and the pleasure – of looking. The muddled edges of Wille’s paintings, which in their layers and drips exceed the canvas in both directions, concur. Can’t find something worth gazing at, and then something else, and then something more? Boring is on you.
-Lori Waxman
Jessica Baran, RiverFront Times, 2/13
Review of Floating @ Hoffman LaChance Contemporary, St Louis:
This exhibition of fifteen small abstract acrylic paintings all titled Front feels like a collection of pages upon which are chronicled subtle, unutterable notes on the experiment of simply being. Illinois-based artist Michael Wille seems to have stripped himself of everything but the primary materials at hand (paint, canvas) and approaches each piece as an occasion to explore a single impulse. Dim gold surfaces overlap with jagged, triangulated forms of pale yellow and turquoise; a silver surface is carved into a labyrinthine series of squares, through which sublayers of white, gray and raw canvas appear. Angular, maize-colored shapes overlay deep strata of browns and reds; hot pink undercoats are fractured into sliced platinum squares. Some pieces have been sanded over, giving them a distressed matte texture, while others have a glassy sheen. In each a small wordless problem is confronted and subtly probed, and while discrete compositional resolutions may be reached, the exhibit as a whole suggests an ongoing inquiry. This productive compulsion — to revise, reorder, re-color, re-texturize — contributes a lively unease to the show: This is no closed book ready for shelving, but, rather an open and discursive source.
Review of Floating @ Hoffman LaChance Contemporary, St Louis:
This exhibition of fifteen small abstract acrylic paintings all titled Front feels like a collection of pages upon which are chronicled subtle, unutterable notes on the experiment of simply being. Illinois-based artist Michael Wille seems to have stripped himself of everything but the primary materials at hand (paint, canvas) and approaches each piece as an occasion to explore a single impulse. Dim gold surfaces overlap with jagged, triangulated forms of pale yellow and turquoise; a silver surface is carved into a labyrinthine series of squares, through which sublayers of white, gray and raw canvas appear. Angular, maize-colored shapes overlay deep strata of browns and reds; hot pink undercoats are fractured into sliced platinum squares. Some pieces have been sanded over, giving them a distressed matte texture, while others have a glassy sheen. In each a small wordless problem is confronted and subtly probed, and while discrete compositional resolutions may be reached, the exhibit as a whole suggests an ongoing inquiry. This productive compulsion — to revise, reorder, re-color, re-texturize — contributes a lively unease to the show: This is no closed book ready for shelving, but, rather an open and discursive source.
Mary Laube, curatorial essay for New Day @ Prairie Lights, Iowa City
Consider the experience of an archaeologist: the sensation of being immersed in earthen substances and the ceaseless curiosity that keeps one searching. Imagine clay and grime under your fingernails, the damp smell of a cavernous hole in the ground, and the inexplicable wonder upon discovering a hidden mystery preserved in the earth. In addition to the associations we have with the physical acts of archaeological digging, think of what it means to be doing archaeology: to investigate and search for evidence of the past in order to learn more about ourselves in the present. This interpretation can serve as a platform for approaching the work of Michael Wille and perhaps abstract painting itself. Upon seeing his recent work, I am confronted with two observations: the physicality of the paintings and the inevitable desire to uncover relationships of non-objective forms within a field saturated with history. Similar to archaeology, Wille’s work is teeming with the seductiveness of material, the struggle of searching, and the awe of discovery in light of the past.
Michael Wille departs from previous methods of constructing images in the exhibition New Day. In earlier bodies of work, he gathered visual information from specific locations and translated them into the language of abstract painting. Semi-circles referenced the architectural characteristics of Roman rooftops and gridded conduits recalled the structures of a Cleveland baseball stadium. In his most recent work, this translation process is abandoned in order to commit to a deeper investigation of abstract painting. Perhaps the relinquishing of a pre-determined process is similar to climbing into an unknown abyss, in search of a relic of explanation.
Unidentifiable geometric shapes dance across the paintings: a stratum sea of color and material. Windows uncover the history of the object, allowing us to see past the closest layer, while other forms are barriers, cloaking information, as they float over and above the surface. Despite the impulse to identify non-objective forms in abstract painting, Michael Wille’s work does not require this. While individual paintings may subtlety reference a mountain range, an architectural structure, or even a vague scrap of cardboard, these associations barely skim the surface. Perhaps this was the artist’s challenge and goal; to push non-objectivity as far as possible, so that the forms become independent of what is expected, nameless, yet very much there. This nameless presence is what keeps this body of work rooted in human experience; the phenomenal and emotional currents that we experience beyond the manifestation of words.
Not Exactly There
written for University of Mississippi exhibition, 2011
This particular project is somewhat of a departure from my traditional studio practice. I typically choose a location (South Africa, Rome, Cleveland, etc) that I am familiar with and make paintings that (in an abstract way) address the visual architecture and landscape of those sources in my pictures. I consider the physical and intellectual socialization process of existing in a new environment to be a simple analog for a viewer to consider when experiencing my paintings. One develops a greater understanding of a place by actively experiencing it. The same is true of looking more actively at a seemingly abstract painting. That process of choosing a city and then exploring ways to depict/consider it has been enough of a prod to develop work for nearly a decade.
This exhibition exists as a separate, new mode of my practice, leaving behind the referential characteristics of a location that might be noticed by an audience. Consequently, I have freely, confidently entered the realm of non-objective painting. When starting out, I wanted this body of work to ask what other ways a painting can serve as a “witness” a place.
Yet as I continued to investigate the manner in which I addressed formal potential, color issues, paint handling, etc, I began to think of the paintings as stand-ins for the constant questions rattling around my mind – how does abstract painting become meaningful? How does an audience engage in abstract painting when some of my intention is to deny certain historical, formal, logical methods of making? These are just a sampling of a few questions that I ponder as an artist a decade out of graduate school. This newest body of work has my mind racing with potential ways that the work can be interpreted, let alone continue to be made.
The Motive of Form: Michael Wille at violet poe projects
written by Benjamin Gardner, 2011
With the history of abstraction and formalism sitting on his shoulders, Michael Wille is using an impersonal and culturally normative vocabulary to create a large-scale assemblage of dense little paintings. His references are to a history so rich and investigated one might see these as a repetition in a culture that begs for the "brand-new" in art. It would be a mistake, however, to write this project off as anything but a reinforcement of and a campaign for abstraction as an integral part of human understanding.
The importance of these pieces is that their reference is not self-evident; they are not explained by theories or narrative. To stand for something like this that has been questioned since the 1950's is to call on the audience to trust in a process that over time proves its validity by being ineffable. Specifically, Wille's paintings of geometric shapes and a hue-less palate use a basic vocabulary to reference abstraction's power to transcend verbal and theoretical explanation of meaning; not art for art's sake necessarily but abstraction for abstraction's sake, with the "sake" being the unexplainable meaning created by abstraction and its history.
This project is a construction of smaller parts--like bricks or timber--that forms a wall of dynamic and changing composition. At the end of the installation, viewers will take with them a part of this piece with all of its historical meaning, much like the value of materials from an old house or building with the history of everything that has happened within its walls. Each section serves as a monument to the piece as it was assembled and the references to abstraction for its own sake. Each piece is a testament to the power of ineffability.
Consider the experience of an archaeologist: the sensation of being immersed in earthen substances and the ceaseless curiosity that keeps one searching. Imagine clay and grime under your fingernails, the damp smell of a cavernous hole in the ground, and the inexplicable wonder upon discovering a hidden mystery preserved in the earth. In addition to the associations we have with the physical acts of archaeological digging, think of what it means to be doing archaeology: to investigate and search for evidence of the past in order to learn more about ourselves in the present. This interpretation can serve as a platform for approaching the work of Michael Wille and perhaps abstract painting itself. Upon seeing his recent work, I am confronted with two observations: the physicality of the paintings and the inevitable desire to uncover relationships of non-objective forms within a field saturated with history. Similar to archaeology, Wille’s work is teeming with the seductiveness of material, the struggle of searching, and the awe of discovery in light of the past.
Michael Wille departs from previous methods of constructing images in the exhibition New Day. In earlier bodies of work, he gathered visual information from specific locations and translated them into the language of abstract painting. Semi-circles referenced the architectural characteristics of Roman rooftops and gridded conduits recalled the structures of a Cleveland baseball stadium. In his most recent work, this translation process is abandoned in order to commit to a deeper investigation of abstract painting. Perhaps the relinquishing of a pre-determined process is similar to climbing into an unknown abyss, in search of a relic of explanation.
Unidentifiable geometric shapes dance across the paintings: a stratum sea of color and material. Windows uncover the history of the object, allowing us to see past the closest layer, while other forms are barriers, cloaking information, as they float over and above the surface. Despite the impulse to identify non-objective forms in abstract painting, Michael Wille’s work does not require this. While individual paintings may subtlety reference a mountain range, an architectural structure, or even a vague scrap of cardboard, these associations barely skim the surface. Perhaps this was the artist’s challenge and goal; to push non-objectivity as far as possible, so that the forms become independent of what is expected, nameless, yet very much there. This nameless presence is what keeps this body of work rooted in human experience; the phenomenal and emotional currents that we experience beyond the manifestation of words.
Not Exactly There
written for University of Mississippi exhibition, 2011
This particular project is somewhat of a departure from my traditional studio practice. I typically choose a location (South Africa, Rome, Cleveland, etc) that I am familiar with and make paintings that (in an abstract way) address the visual architecture and landscape of those sources in my pictures. I consider the physical and intellectual socialization process of existing in a new environment to be a simple analog for a viewer to consider when experiencing my paintings. One develops a greater understanding of a place by actively experiencing it. The same is true of looking more actively at a seemingly abstract painting. That process of choosing a city and then exploring ways to depict/consider it has been enough of a prod to develop work for nearly a decade.
This exhibition exists as a separate, new mode of my practice, leaving behind the referential characteristics of a location that might be noticed by an audience. Consequently, I have freely, confidently entered the realm of non-objective painting. When starting out, I wanted this body of work to ask what other ways a painting can serve as a “witness” a place.
Yet as I continued to investigate the manner in which I addressed formal potential, color issues, paint handling, etc, I began to think of the paintings as stand-ins for the constant questions rattling around my mind – how does abstract painting become meaningful? How does an audience engage in abstract painting when some of my intention is to deny certain historical, formal, logical methods of making? These are just a sampling of a few questions that I ponder as an artist a decade out of graduate school. This newest body of work has my mind racing with potential ways that the work can be interpreted, let alone continue to be made.
The Motive of Form: Michael Wille at violet poe projects
written by Benjamin Gardner, 2011
With the history of abstraction and formalism sitting on his shoulders, Michael Wille is using an impersonal and culturally normative vocabulary to create a large-scale assemblage of dense little paintings. His references are to a history so rich and investigated one might see these as a repetition in a culture that begs for the "brand-new" in art. It would be a mistake, however, to write this project off as anything but a reinforcement of and a campaign for abstraction as an integral part of human understanding.
The importance of these pieces is that their reference is not self-evident; they are not explained by theories or narrative. To stand for something like this that has been questioned since the 1950's is to call on the audience to trust in a process that over time proves its validity by being ineffable. Specifically, Wille's paintings of geometric shapes and a hue-less palate use a basic vocabulary to reference abstraction's power to transcend verbal and theoretical explanation of meaning; not art for art's sake necessarily but abstraction for abstraction's sake, with the "sake" being the unexplainable meaning created by abstraction and its history.
This project is a construction of smaller parts--like bricks or timber--that forms a wall of dynamic and changing composition. At the end of the installation, viewers will take with them a part of this piece with all of its historical meaning, much like the value of materials from an old house or building with the history of everything that has happened within its walls. Each section serves as a monument to the piece as it was assembled and the references to abstraction for its own sake. Each piece is a testament to the power of ineffability.