Background

Mike Cloud was born in 1974, in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

Education

In 2001, Mike received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Art of the University of Illinois in Chicago. Two years later, in 2003, he attained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Art (the art school of Yale University) in New Haven.

Career

During his career, Mike has held numerous solo exhibitions, including "Mike Cloud", Max Protetch Gallery, New York City (2004), "Special Project: Mike Cloud", P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (present-day MoMA PS1), New York City (2005), "Mike Cloud: Systems", Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska (2006), "Mike Cloud: A Eating Phylosophy", Center for Visual Communication, Miami, Florida (2007), "Mike Cloud: Quiltmaking & Overproduction of Opposites", Meulensteen Gallery, New York City (2010), "Mike Cloud: Bad Faith and Universal Technique", Thomas Erben Gallery, New York City (2014), "Mike Cloud", Independent Art Fair/Thomas Erben Gallery, New York City (2015), among others.

Also, Mike has taken part in many group exhibitions, including "Art After the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Apexart, New York City (2003), "Frequency", The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City (2006), "Unfathom", Max Protetch Gallery, New York City (2007), "Charismatic Abstraction", Albertine Monroe-Brown Gallery, Kalamazoo, Michigan (2008), "February Show", Ogilvy & Mather, New York City (2011), "NADA Art Fair", Thomas Erben Gallery, Miami, Florida (2014), "Cyborg", Zurcher Gallery, New York City (2015) and others.

Cloud held the post of a visiting critic, serving at such establishments, as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Department of Art & Art History (2006), University of Chicago, Department of Visual Arts, Chicago (2007), Yale School of Art, New Haven (2008) and Kansas City Art Institute, Painting Department, Kansas City (2010).

In 2011, Mike held the position of a visiting artist at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson; New York Center for Arts and Media Studies, New York City; and Cooper Union School of Art, New York City. In 2015, he held the same post at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia.

Throughout his career, Cloud also held various teaching positions. In 2008, he was appointed an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Art in New Haven. Between 2009 and 2011, he acted as an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. From 2010 till 2011, Mike held the same post at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York City. In 2011-2012, he served as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2012, Cloud was appointed an assistant professor at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York City, the post he still continues to hold.

Currently, the artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York City.

Achievements

• Mike Cloud is mostly known for his work, which examines the conditions of painting in its contemporary life among countless reproductions, symbols and descriptions. He received several awards, including the Grace Holt Memorial Award in African American Issues, Barry Schactman Prize in Painting and Chiaro Award. In addition, Mike was awarded with the New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship in 2015.
  
  Cloud's works are held in the collections of different museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York City; Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia, and Sheldon Museum of Art (formerly known as Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery).

Works

More photos

• artwork

  • Elephant with Heart Maze

  • Crocodile on Star of David Maze

  • Chicken on Star of David Maze

  • Untitled

  • Frog on Lightening Maze

  • Purple Circle Geometric Quilt

  • Iron Man Flying Quilt

  • Rabbit Quilt

  • Snow Man Quilt

  • EZJ Doritos Plate

  • EGF Thai Sweet Chili Plate

  • Al Pacino Paper Quilt (Front)

  • Travelling Barracade

  • Removed Individual

  • Cycle and Stable

  • S of B

• collage

  • Heidi Fleiss

  • Hillary Rodham Clinton

  • Patti Smith

  • Annie Leibovitz Women Gay

  • Annie Leibovitz Women Business Minded

  • Bride Prince

  • Blurry Dance

  • Leibovitz Orange #16

• painting

  • Red/White Curved Stripes

  • Red/Yellow, Blue Spots, Diagonals

  • Help the Pirate

  • New Perspective

Views

Evolving a unique painterly language, Cloud's work often comprises a mash-up of thick paint and patchworks of collaged material and language, culled from photo books, newspapers and other ephemera from daily life. For one of his exhibitions, Cloud created a selection of multi-layered paintings on his signature shaped canvases, newspaper collages, made up of clippings from various New York dailies and large-scale paper quilts, composed of photographic fragments. These works represent the confluence of the artist's expressive mark-making with a myriad of recognizable forms, including graphic symbols, text and pattern. In combining these elements, Cloud explores the creative possibilities of abstraction in contemporary painting alongside unraveling the multiple meanings and associations, embedded in familiar signs and symbols of modern time.

It's also worth noting, that, although Mike refers to himself as mostly an abstract painter, his work is profoundly political.

Quotations: "I make objects, that are very dimensional, not always frontal, and sometimes incorporate very familiar imagery. In spite of my use of depth and imagery, I am very interested in how abstraction and painting function. I don't think, that contemporary objects tend to function through formal philosophies. Maybe, to some degree, line, color and shape act directly on psychology through what is called "significant form". Perhaps diagonal lines appear active by analogy to falling and horizontal ones appear restful by analogy to sleeping. Perhaps red appears agitating by analogy to fire and blue calming by analogy to the water. But bodily experience is not central to contemporary language and contrast is as important a reference point as analogy."

"Paintings are always objects within a system of objects, and my paintings create a kind of microcosmic system of objects (toys, mazes, symbols and painting materials), which, although familiar within their own contexts, might combine into an overarching system of familiarities, that create a kind of transparency of their own."

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "What makes Mike different from many other black artists of his age is that he is really resistant to putting images of black people in his paintings. What is consistent in the work though, is that he's constantly interrogating Western thought - its ideals, its history, its prerogatives." - Christopher Stackhouse, a writer and visual artist