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Michael Azgour
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About the artist
Michael azgour
Michael Azgour is a contemporary artist interested in the space between perception and reality. His paintings are constructed from multiple layers of paint which alternate between expressive figuration and geometric abstraction.
Azgour’s award-winning paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe, and Asia, including solo shows at the Art Museum of Los Gatos, CA and Hohmann Fine Art in Palm Desert, CA, and upcoming solo shows at Brennecke Fine Arts in Berlin and Fresno Art Museum. His work has been represented at many Art Fairs such as SCOPE NYC (solo show), Art Market San Francisco, and Los Angeles Art Show. His work is part of renowned private and public collections around the world, including Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford University, and Showtime Television Network in New York. Michael has exhibited alongside a number of highly respected artists and regularly delivers lectures about his work, such as a recent talk at TEDx Krakow. Michael teaches drawing and painting courses at Stanford University.
“Azgour’s works are expressive and geometric abstractions informed by an involved process that combines a strategic, realistic technique with pattern and repetition and the muse of accidental surprise. His figures seemingly float with one foot firmly planted in the present while the other wafts into the past. Paint becomes pixel, blur or distortion mirroring the disconnected snapshots and video clips that populate our social media profiles. He challenges the viewer’s interpretation by combining unrelated imagery in the same composition. Although the disparate visuals and juxtaposed compositions appear random, they are in fact bits of narrative from the artist’s own life and travels.” – K Nichols
Azgour Art Group
Art Education
Azgour Art Group is an art education and mentorship community founded by internationally exhibiting artist, Michael Azgour.
Azgour Art Group is a high quality, comprehensive program designed to help artists of all levels create a productive art-making practice. We’re a growing community of 60+ members focused on taking our art-making process, concept, and results to the next level. This group consists of artist and students – working in any 2D medium at all levels of experience – who want to learn and develop in a supportive environment.
MISSION: To be a vital source of learning and community for artists of all levels by providing fertile ground for growth. We help our members strengthen their art-making process, create consistently strong paintings, and build a sustainable creative practice.
Learn more: Azgour Art Group
Videos
Michael Azgour Artist Video (2023)
A quick dive into the life and work of artist, Michael Azgour.
Michael Azgour is a contemporary artist exhibiting in galleries in museums. His work focuses on the gap between the perceived and the real.
video by Michał Grzywacz
Michael Azgour on Inspiration and Painting (2018)
Artist Michael Azgour talks about what interests him as a painter and takes us into his studio for a glimpse at his process.
Produced by Michał Grzywacz
TEDx Krakow (2017)
TEDx Talk: “Capturing change: how unfinished artworks invite active viewers” Presentation by Michael Azgour at TEDx Krakow, Manggha Museum
Virtual Gallery
Recent Paintings
On the Web
Artist Statement
Michael Azgour
My work is inspired by contemporary imagery and the ambiguous space between fact and fiction. My paintings address the subjectivity of perceived truths in a world where facts are disputed, machines invent realities, and virtual experiences are convincingly real.
While studying at University of California, San Diego, I became fascinated with the mechanisms of perception and our ability to understand and to form meaningful relationships with what we see. As a representation of the physical world, the photograph often evokes similar responses. However, by removing context, distorting imagery, and rushing the viewing process (think social media), our perceptions are based on an abstract representation of reality. In a sense, this abstraction is analogous to Impressionist paintings of the late 19th century, in which arbitrary paint application and color distortion influence the viewer’s perception of a scene.
The works in this series address the subjectivity of perceived truths by combining disparate imagery and painting styles, begging the question, what is real? The works often depict moments on the verge of change in which discontinuity of narrative is used to embody a larger span of time and meaning. Transparency and masking techniques reveal multiple layers of paint and direct viewers to the abstract building blocks of the piece, illuminating the artmaking process as a subject in itself. The paintings often contain areas which appear partially incomplete, inviting the viewer to engage with the painting in their own act of creation, thereby completing the work. – Michael Azgour, 2024
NFTs
