When I first looked at Bauer’s drawings, I saw many different shapes. Those different shapes, which seem to be tangled into each other and joined to a center, are unfamiliar to any forms I’ve seen before. They contrast with what those shapes try to express: Love, for example. Bauer uses words that are familiar to everyone: Love, high or even free. Somehow, everyone knows what the words mean, but actually, what is love? Or Freedom? In some way, they are hard to understand or to reach. Also, his words don’t express anything material; we cannot touch, nor see Love or Freedom. They are only personal feelings that everyone can or cannot “feel” inside them. Bauer’s knotted shapes disable the viewer from recognizing something that he has already seen. Everything seems unreachable: the word itself and the shapes, because they twist with each other and form spirals. They look like something from another dimension.
The shapes of Bauer’s drawings reflect an ending and a beginning. In fact, he uses spirals, which are made with a simple word that he writes a thousand times: Love. But why those he write them so many times? Perhaps because they have already and will always exist millions of times, without knowing why or how they came into being. Those lines of text create spiraling abstract shapes that look like explosions or something that might come from outer space. Maybe Bauer feels that those feelings are ephemeral, like life.
Bauer plays with words and meanings. He tries to understand what they truly express and how they can actually be expressed. If my interpretation is right, I think Bauer’s work is thoughtful and provocative. He shows his modesty, saying that some things in life, which everyone is seeking-- are perhaps unreachable.
-Sean Johnson, '08
"My first thought about [Bauer’s] work was that it was very creepy to repeat the same words over and over. I looked at the work more and then realized that the words seemed to fit with the intricate designs that they made up. There was one painting that just said “love” hundreds upon thousands of times. When I looked at this closer and thought about it more, to me, it seemed like the emotion of someone developing an obsession, or falling in love. [When I considered them again in this context], they all seemed to make sense even though they were kind of weird."
-E.P. 2011
On January 4th, Kimball Union Academy hosted positive declarations, an exhibition of artworks by Michael G. Bauer. Bauer’s artworks are compositions of a series of beautiful patterns. The patterns are made of many small words that contain big meanings.
Bauer’s drawings have characteristics that invite the viewer into the world of meditation. The patterns that Bauer uses for his drawings are mostly several compositions of circles and spirals, which focus the audiences’ eyes to the center. This drawing effect moves the audiences’ level of concentration to the stage of deep thinking.
Moreover, Bauer embeds texts in the patterns as a guideline for the travel. He uses positive words such as “Love”, “I Love You” and “Free”. Those tiny words create the pattern like bricks that pave the way to connect the mind of the audience with the drawings, and they help people follow their trip into the deeper mind.
Michael Bauer’s artworks lead us to visit our deepest mind to discover love and the spirit of freedom inside. Take a deep breath and see his drawing again: you will see the spirit of Love or Freedom inside the picture, but also from inside your heart.
-Bon Joon Koo, '09
I am totally in love with Michael Bauer’s art in the gallery this month. I have to go into that room every time I see it unlocked with the lights on. Everything I draw is abstract but I don’t have anywhere near the amount of patience it would take to do what he does.
It’s really interesting to see the picture from further away and have it make you feel a certain emotion, then go closer and read the words that make it up and see how they relate to the emotion. And if they don’t relate, it’s interesting to see how the drawing would relate to a different emotion. For example, the lovelovelove one that’s on the wall closest to the door uses very little color and the color it does use is soft and mild. The only thing that sticks out are the swirls and circles that overlap around the edges. Love is like a lot of circles that cross each other and veer away from each other. But the words all join together in the middle. All the love in the drawing is drawn into the center of the paper showing that no matter how many twists and turns and circles you must go in, love always finds it’s way home.
Michael Bauer’s work is so incredible to look at, it feels like you’re falling into all the time he spent on it and you can’t even believe the effort he must have put into all his masterpieces. Even the smaller ones must have taken months. It’s all just incredible.
-Emily Zea, '10
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