MICHAEL GREGORY
Places I Remember
October 23 - December 6, 2025
On October 23, Nancy Hoffman Gallery opens an exhibition of 17 new oil paintings by Michael Gregory inspired by places he has visited, memories of landscapes, as well as his iconic American barns. The works range in scale 36 x 30 to 48 x 72 inches. The exhibition will be on view through December 6, 2025.
The artist writes about this new body of work:
The title of my show refers to the Beatles song “In My Life” from the 1965 album Rubber Soul. This song has special meaning for me as I am at a point in my life where friends and others I’ve known are disappearing. The past is playing a greater role in my thoughts.
I am California born and raised yet purposely left to relocate in Rhinebeck, NY. This has been a positive change, although the Western landscape is ever present in my thoughts. I am home, but miss the California I remember from my past.
My road trips, my moving east are all part of that search for a place that is home. This is one of the oldest human stories. Think the Odyssey, Moses and the Israelites, our American journey and the migrations throughout history. I think this urge to move, to explore and remake one’s life is a fundamental human trait.
I don’t think these paintings are a departure from the territory my work inhabits. I am interested in the same themes I’ve worked on literally my whole artistic life. At its core are the Greek words nostos and algos meaning homecoming and ache.
The studio is the stage where the dramas take place. I work on numerous paintings at the same time. Their subjects are mined from memories, photos I’ve taken. When I begin to assemble my images on canvas, one piece will inform another. It’s a conversation.
The forms in the 3 island paintings harken back to my haystack paintings of the mid 1980’s and to the rounded barns from the last 25 years. For some reason I am attracted to this configuration. It keeps reemerging in my work.
The paintings in “Places I Remember” all have in common one thing: they all reflect the passage of time. The buildings “rise fall tumble” (T.S. Elliot), the rocks are sculpted from water and weather.
“Time waits for no one” Rolling Stones
About the Artist
Michael Gregory was born in Los Angeles in 1955. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. He now resides in Rhinebeck, New York with his wife.
The artist’s work has been shown at The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, Denver; Boise Art Museum, Idaho; 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, History and Science, 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; Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado; 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; The Charlotte and Philip Hanes Art Gallery, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
His work is included in the collections of the Boise Art Museum, Idaho; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science, Indiana; San Jose Museum of Art, California, and numerous private collections.
He was Martha and Merritt deJong Memorial Artist-in-Residence, Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science, Indiana in 2003.