Michael Feldman has always been an artist.  At University of Toronto he studied formal art, philosophy, literature, and mass media theory before launching his career in the commercial art and publishing world.  Starting as a multi-tasking freelancer in London, Paris, Rome, then segueing to Eastern Europe and South America, he eventually became a recognized art director and media consultant.

During his worldwide travels he went to great effort to observe not only local gallery art but also the less self-conscious artistry of indigenous craftspeople.  He was interested in their particular high impact applications of colour and line to produce unusual and intense aesthetic and dramatic effects. 

It was on a trip through the lush ‘Gran Savana’ region crossing Venezuela and Brazil that he experienced a spectrum shift that dramatically transformed his artistic sensibilities.  In an incredibly vibrant world the rushing water and omnipresent vegetation functioned as more than a passive background.  The greens resonated their greenness, the sky was bluer.  The landscape was alive.  A vital, constantly moving force.

The inescapable brightness and flow was infused in the native art.  Applying masses of homemade dyes to wooden surfaces in torrents of natural paint produced incredibly striking results with tremendous rhythm and flow.  It reflected the contrasting brilliant colours and intense darkness that fought each other there at the edge of the inhabited world.

It left an indelible impression.

Michael took over Dessinee Galley in 2005. With a new studio and opportunity to introduce to North American eyes something that had affected him deeply, he proceeded in trying to recapture his visions.  With considerable effort he was able to duplicate the brilliant colours and contrasts. But only after struggling for months rediscovered the critical element, the essential technique that made all the difference.  In using paints to simulate the movement in a torrential rainstorm one had to recreate the environment itself. Working with enormous volumes of constantly flowing and often flying paint he discovered a way to engulf his boards and canvases to the point he was generating virtual tidal waves.  This was no longer static representation.  Like nature it was fluidly in motion, taking on a life of it’s own.  Coloured rivers flowed and branched off into iridescent streams.  And importantly, he was now orchestrating the process.  Somehow the works themselves were responding.  His emotions were channeled by the medium itself,  telekinetically manifesting as intensely emotive works of Fine Art.

It became a kind of shamanistic magic.