presents MICHAEL FABIAN "PRESENT PAINT"
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Michael Fabian
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THE NATURE OF AMERICA PAINTINGS Celebrating the flora and fauna throughout the United States of America, the US Postal Service periodically issues sheets of stamps entitled "The Nature of America". I have manipulated these scenes and questioned another aspect of "The Nature of America". Oil pumping equipment disturbs a tranquil scene in the Arctic Tundra region; tract housing is the new horizon line of the Great Plains; a pulse of sonar shoots through the coral reef of California. The act of inserting a new image into an existing one assigns new meaning to the word "nature". The role of plants and animals take a secondary importance.
	"Sprawl On Canvas" 2008 oil on canvas h:12" x w:24"	"Sonoran Desert" 2008 oil on canvas h:48 x w:60"	"Oil On Canvas" 2008 oil on canvas h:12" x w:24"	"Sonar On Canvas" 2009 oil on canvas h:48" x w:60"

THREE OF THE SIX NEWPORT SERIES PAINTINGS The collage paintings from 1994-1995 were inspired by a Newport cigarette billboard on the corner of Canal and Hudson streets in New York City. While an old Newport ad was being removed, a new Newport advertisment was being glued in its place. I created four more scenarios taken from real Newport cigarette ads. All of them depicted active couples engaged in smoking. Both ads were collaged at an exact mid-way point; partly torn away and partly being applied. The final collage was then enlarged, scaled and oil painted.
	"Ouster" 1995 oil on canvas h:54" x w:46"	"Dwell" 1995 oil on canvas h:40" x w:48"	"Newport Pleasure" 1994 h:40" x w:48" oil on canvas	"Newport Cigarette Billboard" Video-1994, DVD transfer 2009

MAP PAINTINGS Bottle Stopper and N. Korea U238, painted in 2007, feature utilitarian objects strategically placed within hollowed-out areas of existing landforms to suggest metaphorical functions. Washington DC The campus grounds of the CIA reminded me of a profile looking eastward. I cemented silver-leaf into that area to symbolize construction materials used in preventing wireless communications from entering the building. The portrait of George Washington was taken directly from an actual bust from the 1790s'. Washington has been credited with initiating the idea that the nation would benefit greaty from the protection of a secret agency.
	"Bottle Stopper" 2007 oil on canvas h:30" x w:44"	"North Korea U238" 2007 oil on canvas h:30" x w:44"	"washington DC" 2005 oil, aluminum leaf on canvas h:64" x w:102"	"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi 1995 oil on canvas h:60" x w:46"