About

My work is concerned with translating and conflating images from media and my own life, through a painting process that aims to slow down and complicate how these images are consumed. I am interested in questioning ideas of authenticity and displacement as they relate to the experience of embodiment. My use of tactile painterly language engages the hand as a tool for acquiring meaning and connection through otherwise disparate images.
In my current body of work, I have focused on a series of small paintings that explore the relationship between the material and the image. This work is conceived as an installation consisting of groupings of several paintings mounted in proximity to one another. The individual paintings are cropped details from larger source images, and function as excerpts of more complete narratives. The fragmentation invites a multiplicity of potential readings and affects.

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Michael Antkowiak (born in Warsaw, Poland, 1977) is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design and completed his MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2003. He has since exhibited in public and commercial galleries in Canada and abroad, including the Queens Museum of Art in New York City, and Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago, Il. Michael is a recipient of several artist’s grants and residencies, including the Ontario Arts Council Grant, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship. In addition to his studio practice in Toronto, Michael teaches with the Faculty of Art at OCAD University and with the Art and Art History Program - Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto, Mississauga Campus.

Michael Antkowiak wishes to acknowledge the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council through the Visual Artists: Emerging grant.