Michael Gregory, Cotton Pickers, 2005, oil on panel, 23 x 22 inches	Michael Gregory, Maypole, 2005, oil on panel, 46 x 36 inches
Gregory's last exhibition entitled "Icons" included a series of black and white barn structures, ordinary structures, rising from the American landscape. Frontal, filling most of the picture plane, the barns were "close-in" views of a subject and icon. Each of the barns was set in a landscape, a small slice of which appeared to the right and left of the barns and in the foreground and distance of these black and white structures. Eschewing color in favor of a stark black and white palette, the artist added drama to his icons. Gregory's interest in barns continues in this exhibition with a few new black and white structures, more austere than his last barns, objects of contemplation.
Michael Gregoy, Still Point, 2006, oil on panel, 34 x 55 inches
Michael Gregory, Blue Tent with Red Stars, 2005, oil on panel, 25 x 30 inches	Michael Gregory, Days and Nights, 2005, oil on panel, 26 x 22 inches
While the barn and other structures (such as silos and stucco buildings) took "front and center" in Gregory's work for the past five years, these structures were always painted in a landscape. As the artist's work grows, develops and evolves, the landscape is always present in his paintings. He explains the evolution of the work: "I get up close to things and then move back in my work. The barns are 'in your face,' the landscapes are farther back." Thus, the artist's decisions are fueled by a desire to create a shift in visual space in the paintings. His newest works are a step back, a new vista onto the landscape near his home in Northern California.
Michael Gregory, Tule, 2005, oil on panel, 17 x 22 inches	Michael Gregory, Distant Tent, 2005, oil on panel, 17 x 22 inches
There are images of workers in the fields; sprinklers sparkling with light; circus tents and tented buildings in the landscape, which become abstract shapes of wild color; pure landscapes with a meander that joins land and sky; an air balloon floating above a field of workers, unaware of the colorful object above. Like the workers who are totally immersed in their work, and unaware, the air balloon party participants are in their own floating world, unmindful of the earth beneath and its workers. Inspired by Breughel's painting of the "Plowman" in which the workers are oblivious to what is happening around them, and like Millet, who painted workers in fields in honest and straight forward fashion, Michael Gregory paints laborers tilling and toiling the land, tiny in the face of nature's grandeur, set in the face of land and sky. This is the first time the artist has painted figures in the landscape, giving both a sense of scale.
Michael Gregory. North Flat, 2006, oil on panel, 34 x 55 inches
Michael Gregory, Water Music, 2005, oil on panel, 22 x 30 inches	Michael Gregory, Workers in a Field, 2005, oil on panel, 43 x 55 inches
Gregory's work cycles between the close in view and the distant view. In his new body of work, he moves from the simplicity of the barn structure "close in" to the humble worker "at a distance" and returns to color with a fresh and different palette ranging from intensely colored striped tent fabrics to muted greens, blues, grays and golds. In palette as well as subject, Gregory creates a new poetic and visual icon.
Michael Gregory, Plowman, 2005, oil on panel, 46 x 36 inches	Michael Gregory, Where's Kate? 2005, oil on panel, 46 x 38 inches
The artist's work has been shown at The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; Boulder Center for the Visual Arts, Colorado; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland; Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida; Evansville Museum of Arts, Science and History, Indiana; Fine Arts Center Galleries, University of Rhode Island, Kingston; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan; Florida International University, Miami; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Maier Museum of Art, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, Virginia; Richmond Art Center, California; San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, California; San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, California; San Mateo Arts Council, California; Selby Gallery, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida.
Michael Gregory, Yonder, 2005, oil on panel, 41 x 36 inches	Michael Gregory, Icarus, 2005, oil on panel, 36 x 46 inches
His work is included in the collections of the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Indiana; and numerous private collections.
Michael Gregory, New Bend, 2005, oil on panel, 41 x 36 inches	Michael Gregory, Sierra City, 2005, oil on panel, 43 x 55 inches
He was Martha and Merritt deJong Memorial Artist-in-Residence, Evansville Museum of Arts, Science and History, Indiana.
Michael Gregory, Echo, 2005, oil on panel, 42 x 36 inches	Michael Gregory, White Barn, 2005, oil on panel, 40 x 34 inches
Michael Gregory was born in Los Angeles in 1955. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. He resides in Bolinas, California with his wife and daughters.	Michael Gregory, High Tide, 2005, oil on panel, 46 x 36 inches
Michael Gregory, Water Carrier, 2005, oil on panel, 22 x 27 inches	Michael Gregory, San Simeon, 2005, oil on panel, 45 x 35 inches
Michael Gregory, White Line, 2005, oil on panel, 33 x 27 inches	Michael Gregory, Outskirts, 2006, oil on panel, 43 x 35 inches