Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Costello.
Michael, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I am a mid-career painter originally from Boston now active in East Hampton, New York. Provincetown and Boston I studied at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts under Barnett Rubenstein working as an optical realist. My focus at this time was on 20th-century objects and their iconographic place in history. In 1978 I moved to Provincetown Mass where I have actively shown for over 30 years. In Provincetown, my work became noticed by the late painter Alice Neel who encouraged me to continue my work with the figure.
In 1984 I moved his studio again to Boston and began working with Barbara Singer Fine Art who was instrumental in introducing my work to the corporate art collections in the area. At this time I started traveling to Europe annually to work plein air as well as working in various artist residencies. In 2008 Costello became the first recipient of The Pollack-Krasner Masters to Byrdcliffe. I currently split his time between my studio in Boston, East Hampton and Provincetown where he continues to search for our innate humanness through his figures
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
“I paint beautifully, things you may not wish to look at.I choose my models for their ability to inspire empathy for our universal humanness. For over thirty years I have worked with models to comment on our cultural heritage, both philosophical and theological, to acquaint all that is good with beauty. We focus on making clear definitions of what is ugly and what is beautiful, which often shuns both sides to the extreme, turning the beautiful, ugly and making ugly, beautiful. My work with the model as muse gives us a window into the individual soul. I intend to inspire the viewer to observe the subject with a level of pathos; to confront the truth within themselves, what they believe to beautiful.
Much of my inspiration is birthed in writing, in particular, Umberto Eco’s essays “The History of Beauty” and “On Ugliness.” I often reference myself and other models as classic figures of tragic comedy, such as Gilles or Pagliacci. These beings become allegories for the “lone poet” that lives in all of us. I use the composition creating a familiarity that makes the persona of the model more approachable while recreating them in a 21st-century language. I have found myself examining my visage as I enter my senior years. These days my relationship with the tactile qualities of the surface has taken precedence over the image. The surface of the paint speaks to the London School as flesh as meat.
How can artists connect with other artists?
I use drawing groups both as a way to find models but also as a way to connect with other artists who share my visual concerns. I am also a big believer in doing artist residencies both national and international as a way to connect with other artists.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
-The William Scott Gallery, Provincetown Mass
-Rafius Fane Gallery Boston Mass
Contact Info:
- Website: www.michaelcostelloartist.com
- Email: michaelcostello@earthlink.net
- Instagram: michaelcostelloartist
Image Credit:
Meagan Hepp – meaganhepp.com
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