Born in Denver in 1972, Michael Dowling spent much of his early life as a typical kid apart from being an obsessive drawer. It wasn’t until the age of 25, and after several years studying various subjects as well as working in many fields, that Michael started painting. With that late beginning, Dowling dove full in and began studying extensively. At 28, he decided to sell a burgeoning art sales company and moved to Florence, Italy to focus on painting. He has since returned to his native Denver where he lives and works.

His work has been featured in the films “the Frame” and “Ink” and will be the focus artist on the upcoming showtime release “Devils."

Michael has worked with and shown at the Museum of Contemporary art Denver and Denver Art Museum and has work in several private and public collections both nationally and throughout Europe.

Michael Dowling's work has been characterized as a combination of traditional practices in realism and his explorations of mark, pattern, and color to disrupt that reality. In many compositions, figures presented as portraits morph into their surreal self, and lone objects tell stories through their subtle positioning. These objects and characters sit in bizarre spaces with intentionally disrupted atmospheres to find further meaning within the imagery.

“I intend to use the traditions of painting and drawing in a very contemporary voice; I make my work with a great respect for those traditions along with a fun contempt for our current situations. In my work I always explore our history as a people and how we are today because of it. I am always interested in the stories that repeat throughout cultures, especially those of a religious nature. I like to play with the elements of those stories, the symbols they use often are incorporated and intentionally misrepresented to form my own new myth ideas. In this body of work, I have replaced my careful approach with the notions of volume, repetition, and time limits to explore the patterns in imagery that I’ve worked with for many years and to try to start seeing those images in new ways."