Art has always been a tool to express our interactions with and our wonderment of the natural world. Never a direct reproduction of what we see in front of us, a piece of art always carries with it our stories and our connections. Birds, flowers and animals all talk to me of our shared experiences; connection and isolation, love and loss, permanence and impermanence. I paint to tell a story of beauty of loss and of hope.

With marks and drips, with paint and pencil, and through a series of small decisions and struggles a painting is made. That exquisite and fleeting moment of creation, that bit of magic, that when done right a painting captures.

Today, more than ever we need that bit of magic. We need that affirmation of life. I trust my work resonates with that.

-Michael Dickter