Michael Ioffe

New York-based Belarus-born Michael Ioffe is known for his mixed-media abstract art. Michael works with an admirable range of mediums from painting to sculpture and drawing to explore the line between conscious and subconscious artistic conception.

Michael Ioffe’s Early Career

Michael studied Art, Architecture and Design at the Minsk School of Architecture, specialising in classical art techniques and processes. Upon graduation, Michael worked as a graphic designer before relocating to America in 1989. Since arriving in New York, the artist has flourished as a freelance illustrator. Prominent publications such as the New York Times and New York City Journal have featured his works. At the same time, Michael has been honing his artistic practice, an alluring blend of abstract and surrealistic acrylic and mixed media compositions.

Style and Influences

Michael packs his brilliantly coloured arrangements with vaguely anthropomorphic characters. Hybrid creatures and unusual objects seem to teeter on the edge of disappearance, merging with patterns of purely compositional motion on canvas. As a result, the work feels both improvisatory and highly composed, caught at the moment of coming together or breaking apart. Taking inspiration from the architectonic quality of Cezanne paintings and the neo-expressionist dissolution of subject matter in works by Pollock and Basquiat, Michael treads a curious and rich terrain between the recognisable and the abstract.

Exhibitions

Exhibitions include the 2017 Summer Gala Auction at Boston Museum of Fine Art and two group shows in New York; at Erarta Gallery (2014) and one in support of Aid For AIDS (2012). The artist has also showcased his works in Miami, San Francisco and Manhattan. Michael currently lives in Westchester, NY, with his wife and daughter.