Michael Krueger | island undone

March 28 – April 27, 2024

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 28, 2024, 6-8PM

View the exhibition checklist here.

island undone is Michael Krueger’s second exhibition with the gallery, sharing eight new works in drawing. The works for this exhibit lean on narrative fictions that explore betrayal, melancholy, transformation, and forgiveness. Aspects of the Shakespeare play The Tempest weave through the works, as do narratives from folk and country music. These new drawings articulate emotionally charged land and seascapes; light, color, location, and point-of-view help locate visions of space as narrative and emotional experiences. 

The title, island undone, refers to the island in the Shakespeare play, The Tempest. The play gives some framework to this exhibit, and the themes run parallel. In The Tempest, Prospero, the protagonist, is shipwrecked on an island; the island becomes the place of his undoing, where he reconciles betrayal and, through transformation, finds forgiveness. The image of the lone island has a dual meaning for Krueger, both as a setting of adventure and expectation and as a site of seclusion and contemplation.

The action of drawing brings emotional acumen to Krueger’s process; through mark-making and the invention of drawing languages, he creates artworks that cultivate human connections. Sincerity, nonchalance, and a cautious balance between sorrow and joy permeate the drawn lines, marks, and shading. Michael creates a unique style of combining colored pencil drawings with thin layers of transparent acrylic paint. A long connection with printmaking led him to adapt print processes in his approach to other media. For the past ten years, he has fostered ways to situate traditional printmaking techniques, such as pochoir, stencil-making, and engraving, in his works in painting and drawing. The eight drawings in this exhibition, through place, emotion, and the sequencing of the images, tell a story, albeit a story undone, a tale unraveled, atoll turned inside-out, apt for discovery. 

Grounded firmly in drawing, Michael Krueger works in a variety of media including, painting, drawing, printmaking, animation, and ceramics. Michael’s artwork reflects a deep interest in American history, contemporary American culture, art history, the human experience, and personal memoir. Recent solo exhibitions include, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO, Fuga Villa Morra, Asuncion, Paraguay, Académie Beeldende Kunsten, Ghent, Belgium, and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY. Krueger’s artworks have been collected by numerous public and private collections, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO, Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, RISD Museum of Art, Providence, RI, Frans Masereel Centre, Kasterlee, Belgium, Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA, Kansas City Collections, Kansas, City, MO, and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY. Michael Krueger is a Professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS, an Honorary Resident Dropper and a Tamarind Artist.

Michael Krueger, this island is full of strange noises (when I waked, I cried to dream again), 2024, colored pencil and acrylic on paper, 18 x 22 inches