Michael Wright, Post grad Dip, Fine Art Sculpture (Royal Academy Schools) MA by Res (University of Hertfordshire) HE Fellow, is Senior Lecturer on the MA Fine Art Programme, Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Hertfordshire UK
Wright exhibits internationally and has collaborated with the Dutch concrete artist Henriëtte van 't Hoog since 2006, creating experimental arrangements of photography and video projections in installations. Their collaborative works are exhibited under the name of ‘Wright & Van ’t Hoog’ They have collaborated with the British pianist Philip Mead who has created Musical compositions based on using Wright & Van ’t Hoog's visual compositions as a score.
Wright is a member since 2014 of the Munich based 'Rhythm Section' group led br Oleksiy Koval. Wright has exhibited with the 'Rhythm Section' group in Istanbul 2017,18, 20. Munich 2017,18, London 2016, 2017, Amsterdam 2016,17,18, 19, Odessa 2015, Tiblisi 2014 and in China 2019.
Wright has acted as consultant on publications for Dorling Kindersley in association with the Royal Academy of Arts and authored a number of arts publications on fine art media and digital photography.
Short version statement
Michael Wright works with sculptural form and in particular kinaesthetic readings of movement through the weight, compression and tension of malleable clay forms which are cast in plaster. His sculpture practice exploits the power of form to evoke associative readings of the body and in turn the way the attitude and manipulation of the form generates psychological reading. Wright’s practice exploits the slippage of reading between body and landscape form. The sculptures are arranged to interact with each other as a field of forms, as much a psychological as a physical field which generates associative readings with mythic and religious narratives. He is interested in archetypal form and its connection to recurring cultural themes of power and vulnerability which he explores through drawing from the figure. Wright is interested in the transformative process of repetition and variation of form, migrating practice between concrete 3D and 2D space. More recently he has extended the translation of sculptural preoccupations into digital compositions which take the form of digital prints.
Long version statement
Wright’s practice has developed through a long standing preoccupation with drawing, sculpting and painting from observation, through a concern to visually articulate the processes of perception and the psychological complexity which is present to the process. Wright’s understanding is that perception is inexorably bound to cultural, subconscious and subjective process of imaginative interpretation and projection.
Following undertaking an MA by Research in 2001 entitled 'Drawing, processes of conceptual modelling of landscape space' there was a significant and necessary shift to a more phenomenological approach, extending the drawing based practice into an exploration of digital and film based media, recording the projection and movement of the gaze through a subject space. In particular Wright is interested in the kinaesthetic reading of movement, by which we imaginatively and empathetically read both actual and inferred movement in the body, the environment and plastic art works. Observation in this kinaesthetic sense is not solely the representation of appearance or symbolic representation but rather the graphic or cinematic trace of consciousness as it moves through space, reading and interpreting the weight, rhythm and movement of form and the movement of the interpretative gaze. Drawing from this perspective of understanding is a performative process of touch and mobility of mark making which in turn is a visual record of the analytical and empathetic projection of the gaze.
Wright exhibits internationally and has collaborated with the Dutch concrete artist Henriëtte van 't Hoog since 2006, creating experimental arrangements of photography and video projections in installations. Their collaborative works are exhibited under the name of ‘Wright & Van ’t Hoog’ They have collaborated with the British pianist Philip Mead who has created Musical compositions based on using Wright & Van ’t Hoog's visual compositions as a score.
Wright is a member since 2014 of the Munich based 'Rhythm Section' group led br Oleksiy Koval. Wright has exhibited with the 'Rhythm Section' group in Istanbul 2017,18, 20. Munich 2017,18, London 2016, 2017, Amsterdam 2016,17,18, 19, Odessa 2015, Tiblisi 2014 and in China 2019.
Wright has acted as consultant on publications for Dorling Kindersley in association with the Royal Academy of Arts and authored a number of arts publications on fine art media and digital photography.
Short version statement
Michael Wright works with sculptural form and in particular kinaesthetic readings of movement through the weight, compression and tension of malleable clay forms which are cast in plaster. His sculpture practice exploits the power of form to evoke associative readings of the body and in turn the way the attitude and manipulation of the form generates psychological reading. Wright’s practice exploits the slippage of reading between body and landscape form. The sculptures are arranged to interact with each other as a field of forms, as much a psychological as a physical field which generates associative readings with mythic and religious narratives. He is interested in archetypal form and its connection to recurring cultural themes of power and vulnerability which he explores through drawing from the figure. Wright is interested in the transformative process of repetition and variation of form, migrating practice between concrete 3D and 2D space. More recently he has extended the translation of sculptural preoccupations into digital compositions which take the form of digital prints.
Long version statement
Wright’s practice has developed through a long standing preoccupation with drawing, sculpting and painting from observation, through a concern to visually articulate the processes of perception and the psychological complexity which is present to the process. Wright’s understanding is that perception is inexorably bound to cultural, subconscious and subjective process of imaginative interpretation and projection.
Following undertaking an MA by Research in 2001 entitled 'Drawing, processes of conceptual modelling of landscape space' there was a significant and necessary shift to a more phenomenological approach, extending the drawing based practice into an exploration of digital and film based media, recording the projection and movement of the gaze through a subject space. In particular Wright is interested in the kinaesthetic reading of movement, by which we imaginatively and empathetically read both actual and inferred movement in the body, the environment and plastic art works. Observation in this kinaesthetic sense is not solely the representation of appearance or symbolic representation but rather the graphic or cinematic trace of consciousness as it moves through space, reading and interpreting the weight, rhythm and movement of form and the movement of the interpretative gaze. Drawing from this perspective of understanding is a performative process of touch and mobility of mark making which in turn is a visual record of the analytical and empathetic projection of the gaze.
