Michael Southern was born in Syracuse, New York, USA and spent the first forty-one years of his life in the USA until moving to Aotearoa in 2009. He lived for three years in Christchurch and returned to Oregon, USA in 2012. During the pandemic, Michael and his family decided to return to New Zealand permanently, and are now settled in rural Canterbury outside of Oxford.

Intaglio printmaking is where Michael received my primary arts training. He made his first etching in 1988 at Amherst College in Massachusetts, USA, and obtained an MFA in printmaking from the University of Georgia in Athens, USA in 1995. In the Autumn of 1998 Michael began painting small oils on wood panel. Previously, all of his imagery had been black and white etchings done from life, however, Michael’s paintings are imagined, representing no particular area and are created entirely in the studio. They have evolved over the years as Michael has refined his practice and researched the techniques and materials of the old masters.

‘Every landscape painting is an amalgam of places seen and experienced and ultimately idealised based on the needs of the picture and my desire to take part in the realisation of a “perfect place”. Over time I began adding figures to these landscapes and this has led to a new body of work, much of it significantly larger than the smaller landscapes.

I need interaction with nature to feel balance, connection and mystery. I see landscape, and the figures contained therein, as a metaphor for this search for an ideal place. Painting is the physical act of constructing my home; a place of refuge. I want the art that I put into the world to be reminiscent of a beautiful place, but not so definable as to be representative of a real place.’ – Michael Southern