Sky (2019) Digital Arts by Laurie Philip Michaels

I create original drawings of women, transgender women, and occasionally men, that highlight their diversity and beauty. I hope these works will evoke an emotional reaction in you. The work is political. In these days when misogyny, bigotry, and even outright calls to violence have become a fixture of the political landscape, any work that respects diversity and calls it beauty is a work of protest. The hostile way that images of women are produced and consumed is challenged by my work. 

It is my hope that I can capture moments that each of us can relate to or admire, and in so doing enhance the social respect that we all should receive by right. Women are not the second sex. Transgender persons are not knockoffs, less than those who are assigned their most fitting gender at birth. These truths shouldn’t need explaining.   

I came to art early. My mother was deeply impressed by an artist interview in which the artist told of scrounging desperately for materials when he was young. She decided no child of hers would do without art materials, and that encouragement alone launched my interest in art. It was one of the truest gifts of my life. I hope you will agree.

As you look through my list of influences, you might be puzzled that my work doesn't fall neatly into any of these artist's styles, or their associated movements. I am deeply affected by each of these artists or movements, but I am not trying to follow in their footsteps as a craftsman might. Instead, each informs my aesthetic sensibility as I try to create something new, fresh, and relevant. 

Of my influences, the one I am most commonly compared to is Patrick Nagel, a Los Angeles pop artist from the 1970s and 80s, who did stark, very commercial, very slick images of vaguely detached, vaguely Asian, vaguely sophisticated women, sexually intimidating and fierce. I see the resemblance in look, but in intention I am nothing like Nagel at all. Nagel specifically intended to objectify his subject. I want to personalize and humanize our vision of women. Nagel did not want to know the women he imagined in his works. I want you to feel you already know the subjects in my works. I want you to recognize yourself in them. I want you to want to meet them.

I studied at El Camino College, Torrance, CA, CSU Dominguez Hills in Carson, CA, and The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, but my art is the result of my personal journey, and not formal training.

On 10/12/2018 I had a private art show in Carmel by the Sea, California at The Muse Spa.
Additional opportunities are actively sought.

• Nationality: UNITED STATES
• Date of birth : 1968
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary American Artists