MICHAEL'S BIOGRAPHY
First, my subject matter is very diverse, including figurative, nature, and cityscape work. My contemporary realistic style draws on a painterly tradition and chronicles places seen or imagined.
From 1994 to 2004, I worked as a commercial artist, graphic designer, and art director while still making fine art. Furthermore, from 2005 to 2007, I toured the fine art festival circuit and was invited to exhibit at The Cottonwood Art Festival and The Fort Worth Main Street Festival.
I started painting murals and commissions in 2007, and the Dallas Uptown Mural appeared in Texas Highways Magazine. My work has been in the top 100 of the Hunting Art Prize finals.
I earned a B.F.A. from Laguna College of Art and Design and my Master of Fine Arts Degree from West Texas A&M University. I currently continue making work and teaching at Clovis Community College in New Mexico.
Longhofer's Artist Statement
My examination and research are a snapshot of modern American society. Cityscapes became my niche because I’ve always been drawn to perspective, automobiles, and the urban landscape. The metropolitan landscape has the qualities of contemporary life. Human-made lighting offers a juxtaposition of the natural sky. The urban landscape has elements of architecture, colored lighting, textures, and different reflective materials. I’m inspired by a beautiful sky, perspective, and cityscape lights intertwined with the human body.
There are figurative elements to my work via the rural and urban landscape, including a new direction and passion for the nude. I am more involved in the composition’s contemplative aspects by assigning more complexity and reason from the source material. The scene’s setting is manipulated to balance human existence and its natural surroundings by combining the curves of the figure with the landscape and geography of the scene.
The historical relevance of cityscapes appeared as backgrounds in portraits and narrative works of antiquity. My work expresses a modern view of the human figure that has been idealized to reflect contemporary stereotypes fused with regional surroundings. By merging these two subjects, my work will explain how the unification between humanity and nature can be fascinating and harmonious.
