BIO

Michael Bykovski is an artist whose work investigates constructed surfaces, geological memory, transparency, and spatial compression. Trained at RISD in both fine art and architecture, he uses oil, canvas, and glass to build abstract fields that hover between landscape, artifact, and architectural section. Bykovski has exhibited at locations such as the Sausalito Center for the Arts, NCY Art Expo, and Red Dot Miami. Michael was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and is currently based in San Francisco, California, with a studio in the iconic Bryant Street Studios. 

STATEMENT

My work explores vivid qualities of the natural world such as the subtle gradations of the sky, geological formations, and branching patterns of water currents. I believe that the direct experience of viewing a landscape is itself an experience of abstraction. Once narrative and symbolic meaning are stripped away, the landscape becomes a visual field of overlapping shapes, chromatic intensity, hue and value as they are affected by the time of day. This way of seeing becomes synthesized into subconscious felt memories expressed through rich textures, fields of color, and carefully composed geometric shapes. The resulting images establish a balance between naturalistic imagery and abstract compositions. Aspects of the natural world emerge through the layers of my paintings, resembling geological excavations, microscopic imagery, and atmospheric perspective.

As a Russian émigré, my richest memories are of the time spent in my family Dacha, or country house. These childhood experiences and subsequent travels in California inspired my passion for nature and landscape painting, both of which have become cornerstones of my work. I am inspired by both the American schools of Abstract Expressionism and the Russian Avant-Garde of the 1920s, and my first mentor, Victor Skersis, of the renowned school of Moscow Conceptualism, encouraged me to question convention and find a sense of the unexpected. I manifest these qualities with a balance of play and critical thinking in my process, where I begin by establishing the geometric relationships of the overall composition and introduce spontaneity through controlled gestural movement and intuition to bring each piece to life. 

I also draw from my architectural practice by approaching my painting as a three-dimensional assembly of parts, instead of a flat image.  Working between canvas and glass, I see my paintings as multi-dimensional sculptures. Textures and sharp contours emerge through layering fields of color. Glass, an architectural construction material, plays an active role in my work instead of its traditional role in painting as a barrier and a protective element. The transparency of glass reveals the “underside” of a painting, and serves as an architectural “section cut”, exposing the core and shell formed by the first layers that make contact with the panel. My work on canvas explores a more additive approach by treating the paint as a sculptural medium that works according to the physical laws of fluid dynamics, creating works that appear as though they were formed naturally without the influence of conventional craftsmanship.