Photograph by George Sakkestad
Artist Margaret Michel with a piece titled "Airborne," at the Villa Montalvo gallery.
By Loretta McCarty
The Gallery at Villa Montalvo opened its doors July 11 to a new exhibit titled Margaret Michel: Drawing to Object, which will run through Aug. 18.
Center stage is taken by Michel's 15-foot construction, "Airborne," made up of wood, bamboo and plexi. The work is influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine, said Theres Rohan, curator of exhibitions.
Michel's extended drawings, mostly graphite on paper, take on a translucence and a three-dimensional look that ultimately pushes her into object-making.
The extended objects, or maquettes (models), are three-dimensional objects that explore through their structures the space they inhabit.
Also on view are four of Michel's monotype prints taken from her "Diving and Dreaming" series, which explores a realm most only rarely experience.
Her exhibit comes on the heels of the "An Invitation to Draw" show, and is intended as its progression.
Michel received her art history degree from George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and her master's in art history from the Ecole du Louvre in Paris.
She is a working artist and teacher in the South Bay and has taught after-school art classes for children at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara. She will teach at Ohlone College this fall.
In 1995 Michel was nominated for the prestigious Society for Encouragement of Contemporary Art award, conferred by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
This exhibit is offered in collaboration with d.p. Fong Galleries in San Jose, where further two-dimensional work and kinetic objects may be viewed through July 21.
The Gallery at Villa Montalvo is open Thursday-Friday, 1-4 p.m., and Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. The gallery will be closed July 21.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, July 24, 1996.
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