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Michael Carey
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Michael Carey (1948-2017)
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Michael John Carey, was a Bay Area sculptor, painter and musician who lived and worked in Berkeley, California from 1978 through 2017. Like fellow Bay Area artists, William T. Wiley, Roy De Forest and Joan Brown, Michael Carey developed a recognizable “personal mythology” of recurring symbols, motifs and materials that conveyed his sense of cosmic truth. These symbols consistently populate his sculpture, painting and works on paper. Carey said, “I had the idea to try to create work that was free of traditional references to modernism—to attempt a visual vocabulary that could be universal. Animal imagery is probably the most elemental imagery in art, going back to the beginning of modern man. Working with that imagery felt right. Working with the connection of humanity to animals and nature implies a further connection of mankind to an elemental cosmic truth about our place in the universe. I'd like my work to in some way help reawaken the connection.”
Carey created grand sculptures in wood that when posed together created a feeling of walking through a mythic forest of animals, trees and humans joined in reverie and peace. He also carved many of his own highly ornate frames in a style that extended the art and conjured the folk art traditions he so admired.
Born September 15, 1948 in Alhambra, California, Michael grew up in Claremont and La Verne, California. In 1976 he received a BA in Sculpture from California State University, Sacramento and in 1978 an MFA in Sculpture from East Texas State University, Commerce. After moving to West Berkeley, he met his future wife Suzanne Anderson in 1981. Their Berkeley home was filled with collections of carved and painted santos and other folk art that richly informed Carey's aesthetic. Their home was also filled with their much-loved dogs, who often appeared in his work. In his final years he completed three major groups of artwork and four CDs of original music.
Art critic Christopher Wagstaff wrote of Carey’s work, “...I think his works convey an awareness of animals and people and their closeness which is beyond anything expressed in art today. Perhaps the closest to Michael in spirit is the great German Expressionist painter Franz Marc who in his work could enter into the souls of creatures and depict the individual kinship we have with them.”
Museum Collection
Racine Art Museum / Wustum, Racine, WI: Woman with Flower Basket
Selected Collections, Commissions and Awards
Public Art Commission J.P. Murphy Park, San Francisco, CA
Public Art Commission Alameda Main Library, Alameda, CA
Public Art Commission Oakland Animal Shelter, Oakland, CA
Phelan Award, Sculpture, Walnut Creek, CA
Security Pacific Bank Corporation, Los Angeles
City of Walnut Creek, CA
Ventana Press, Chapel Hill, NC
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