Michael Azgour, large scale abstract figurative painting

Michael Azgour is an actively exhibiting artist and lecturer whose work explores the ubiquity of photography in contemporary culture and the changing role this has played on the individual experience. Part of dozens of collections, Azgour’s award winning paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States and Europe, including solo shows at Art Museum of Los Gatos and Robert Green Fine Arts in California, as well as Art Fairs such as artMRKT San Francisco, Silicon Valley Art Fair and Los Angeles Art Show.

Azgour is known for abstract figurative paintings that reflect upon fleeting moments within the human condition. His 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 that comes as a result of confident mark making. 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 digitally manipulated portraits and albums that populate our social media profiles. Although the disparate visuals and juxtaposed compositions appear random, they are in fact bits of narrative from the artist’s own life and travels.

Recently, Azgour has been drawn to create work that speaks about how we interact with images today by referencing features found in the disconnected snapshots and video clips that surround our lives. Building on the assumption that a photograph is a suitable representation of a memory, he combines unrelated pictures together in the same composition, challenging the viewer’s interpretation. Through psychological mood and fragmented depictions he asks us What is Real?

He is a Lecturer at Stanford University’s Architectural Design and Continuing Studies programs where he teaches courses in drawing and painting.
Michael Azgour
Mar 23, 2016

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