Studio Art

Michael Eble

Assistant Professor of Studio Art Curator, Humanities Fine Art Gallery University of Louisiana, Lafayette, BFA 1997 University of Mississippi, Oxford, MFA 2002 Contact Info: Office: HFA 49 Phone: (320) 589-6285 E-mail: meble@morris.umn.edu Courses Taught: ArtS 1070 and 1080 First Year Drawing ArtS 1101 and 1102 Basic Studio Drawing I & II ArtS 1105 and 1106 Basic Studio Discussion I & II ArtS 2301 and 2302 Beginning Painting I & II ArtS 3300 and 3300 Advance Painting I & II ArtS 3004 Media Studies: Mural Project/Public Art ArtS 3013 Media Studies: Mixed-Media Painting Personal Website: www.michaeleble.com

Biography
Michael Eble was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He received a BFA degree in painting from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a MFA degree in painting and drawing from the University of Mississippi, in Oxford, Mississippi. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Studio Art and HFA Gallery Curator at the University of Minnesota at Morris. Before relocating to Minnesota, Michael spent a year as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Mississippi and also an Instructor of Art at the Memphis College of Art in Memphis, Tennessee. Over the past years he has shown his paintings, drawings, and prints in numerous regional and national exhibitions. Eble has been the recipient of grants through the Mcknight Foundation, Lake Region Arts Council , Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, Vermont Studio Center, University of Minnesota, and has received travel and research awards, from the University of Mississippi and the University of Minnesota, Morris.

Artist Statement
Endangered Landscapes is a series of new paintings, prints and works on paper, produced from aerial photographs taken of the southeastern Louisiana coastline. During the summer of 2007, I traveled and resided in Louisiana with the research support from the University of Minnesota. While in residence, I researched the growing problem of coastal erosion and wetland loss affecting Louisiana. Louisiana's coastline is currently disappearing at a rate of 10.3 sq miles a year. Between 1990 and 2000, wetland loss was 24 square miles per year; in other words, a span of wetlands the size of one football field has been lost every 38 minutes (Barras et al. 2003).

My fieldwork encompassed viewing these at-risk areas of land from a number of different perspectives and documenting them through digital photographs and sketchbook drawings. I found that the images taken from the air to be the most compelling. From the air, I could fully comprehend the vast scale of the problem and see the delicate relationship between land and water. These experiences gave me an understanding of coastal wetland lost and its implications for the environment and the unique culture that makes up southern Louisiana.

My studio work followed for a short period in Lafayette, LA, then continued in Minneapolis, MN through a research fellowship with the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. During my daily commute to my studio, I would cross the Mississippi and meditate on the aerial images I took during the summer and the problems that face the southern region of Louisiana.

In the studio, I worked from the digital photographs, which served as a catalyst for each painting. Eventually, through the loose application of paint, I would move the painting past the images in the original photograph. My painting process mirrored the visual relationship between land and water that I saw during my residency in Louisiana; I created land, then erased it through the application of water. I continued to take creative liberties in the palette used in each painting.

I see Endangered Landscapes as a body of work that will create environmental awareness about Louisiana’s coastal erosion problem. My main goal is to educate the viewer on the vulnerability of the land that surrounds Louisiana. It is my intention that the viewer connects with this aspect of this new body of work.