NEWS + EVENTS + REVIEWS

Mark Ormand, 

Sarasota, Florida

July 2021

Michael Crabb is a multifaceted individual and dedicated artist who is committed to experimenting with different methods and processes.  He is a visual artist and a musician and these two creative endeavors sometimes inform each other. The power of the hand of the artist is an apt expression when talking about Crabb. He is a very tactile individual who relishes the time he spends strumming his guitar strings with his fingers as well as the time he dedicates to making ink prints with his pinky.  

What is true for many artists is true for Crabb in that some works never seem quite finished to them. He has spent as many as ten years revisiting some of them. These works are compositions he keeps revising and layering. A few such as Fall Down Again recall the works of the painter Clyfford Still who like Crabb wanted those who looked at his paintings to get lost in them and find their own interpretations.

As a young man Crabb was impressed by artists such as C. W. Mundy, the American Impressionist from Indianapolis where Crabb was born. Mundy worked from life and did plein air painting. Crabb at one time thought he might want to pursue this approach and has returned to working from nature from time to time. He created an arresting series of drawings in charcoal on Rives paper that were inspired by images of Lake Calm in Odessa, Florida.

Crabb is remarkably inventive and is always thinking about a new process to bring his ideas to fruition. For example he mixes acrylic varnish with oil paint in such a way as to create a craquelure or a complex pattern of fine lines on the surface of a painting such as Paris in the Fall or Kaleidoscope Tour Bus oil on canvas 12 x 9 inches.

Comics have always interested Crabb, especially “Popeye” and “Calvin and Hobbes.” The introduction of narratives from the comics can ground Crabb’s abstract compositions with the fragment of a story that draws the viewer into a dialogue and piques an interest in exploring the other aspects of his work. The comics also provide humor to the work and reflect Crabb’s naturally engaging personality.

While a student at Ringling College of Art and Design, Crabb was mentored by sculptors Roxie Thomas and Doug Loewen. His wood sculptures from this period demonstrate homage to Donald Judd. He also studied with master printer Patrick Lindhardt who together with Robert Farber introduced him to printmaking and encouraged his passion for paper and ink. Dolores Coe taught him about painting and Kevin Dean introduced him to many ideas about art and the history of art.

Crabb began a series of fine line drawings in 2016 that are a marvel in their delicacy and simplicity. These qualities belie a complex of gestural marks made by his hand. In 2017, he made a series of graphite drawings that continue this theme of seeming economy. However, on close inspection the manner in which he has worked the graphite onto and into the fiber of the ground of Bristol board or vellum offers the viewer an incredible journey of his mark-making. His drawings called Open and Close Shapes were exhibited in 2018

He did a series of large paper works where he used his pinky to create large grids of marks where each mark made with his finger is a miniature painting. Each mark is unique and each mark is fascinating to contemplate individually and in context of the dozens of other similar marks. He inks his pinky with etching or India ink and pushes it through the silkscreen onto gesso or paper. This process allows Crabb to play with values and tones.  Sometimes he adds Letraset letters or numbers to the grid of fingerprints. These mechanically created forms provide a stark contrast to the sensuous smudge of his unique fingerprint. 

Crabb has worked on cross sections of beautiful wood including walnut, elm and parota. He works hard gesso onto part of the surface of the wood and then makes pinky marks with ink on the surface. The juxtaposition of the growth rings on the wood and the mark of his finger establish an arresting contrast between the two organic elements of our bodies and trees.   

The artist’s most recent works including Self-Portrait, 2021, mixed media 67.5 x 74 x 1.75 inches, are the greatest in scale. The largest is almost monumental and is an assemblage of wood, plywood and  a “Popeye” comic strip. It includes works on paper from earlier series and areas of pure pigment of yellow, red, blue, gray and black. Actual yardsticks added to the bottom provide a symbol of measurement, growth and attainment.

Crabb’s inspiration comes from life. A school teacher for many years, he faces the challenges of also parenting the many children in his care who do not have the best of situations at home. He has great compassion for others and his nurturing personality has helped advance the careers of many artists through his publications and galleries. Michael Crabb’s personal goal is his own happiness and in achieving that he includes us on a journey where we can find ourselves in his work.

“Art is the window to man’s soul.  Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within.” 

R. Lynn Whitelaw, 

Retired Founding Director and Chief Curator, Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, March 25, 2021

The art of object-maker Michael Crabb is truly a “window into his soul” and just like the person who made this observation, Crabb’s art is an enigma that unfolds when dissected.  While we see some of his interests with immediacy, upon collective reflection they reveal something far more profound.   

Michael Crabb has probably been an artist all his life – his grandparents, taught him the value of materials and appreciation for the handmade. His creative interests led him to study art at the Ringling College of Art + Design in Sarasota where seeds were planted to mature his talents.  Education, though, was not a formal concern, instead relationships, mentoring and understanding the aesthetics of artists were to strongly inform the development of his art.  Influences in his work can be seen, but they are not derivative, and his originality manifests itself in unique, personal, and autobiographical ways.  

An over-riding characteristic of Michael Crabb’s personality is his sense of passion. In life this has led to supporting artists through his “A Michael Crabb Project” initiatives.  Since graduating from Ringling in 2001, and while pursuing his own art, Crabb has self-published a visual arts magazine, WORKINGTITLE, to promote artists and exhibitions, provide advertising for galleries, and, as he states, “my mission – strengthen the relationship between creator and viewer.” The goal was not done for profit, but with a passion to connect the arts community while honing his skills for layout and design. In 2018, he opened the Locke + Crabb Gallery in downtown Sarasota to support and promote many of the contemporary artists he has befriended and admired over the years. Noble in its efforts, gallery work is laborious, time-consuming, and costly and the gallery closed after one year, despite the continuing need for places where artists may exhibit contemporary or edgy works.    

Passion also defines Michael Crabb the artist, who pursues music and the visual arts with his creative energies.  He is also an accomplished photographer, but views the camera as a catalyst or tool in pursuit of his art. His current body of visual work has evolved over time and is worked on for years combining formal elements of gridding, surface texture, and mark-making abstracted with transitions of blocked color, collage, assemblage, found object and an interactive play of visual elements.  Crabb does not title his smaller works, initially thinking of them as studies, drawings, and monoprints to be incorporated into more final works of size and scale and titled as Self-Portraits.  

In his Artist Statement, Crabb states “…  Each work should embody charm, ambiguity, and an alluring complexity of expression.” Add to this, highly personal references, and a respect for materials and Crabb’s art cannot be labeled stylistically, for it forges a new definition of abstraction, an “ab-strategy”, if you will. For his smaller two-dimensional works, charcoal or pencil drawings may be offset by hard-edge blocked screen prints to create a visual dialogue.  For smaller three-dimensional objects, found Baltic birch wood blocks are covered, in part, with multi-layered gesso areas and screen printed with the mark-making of the artist’s pinky finger. The result appears both ordered and chaotic but nuanced with the pentimento of touch closely observed within revealed layers which might expose the grain in the wood. The experimentation in these untitled studies become incorporated into Crabb’s larger works, measuring as much as 74 x 67 inches in size, and complimented by more personal additions – found objects and wood fragments; areas of actual texture; vintage comic strips (with an affinity for Calvin and Hobbes and Popeye cartoons); and an overall topographical sense of order marred by a conscious intent for decay. Areas of pure color, in blue, yellow, black, and sometimes accents of red, will mask flat shapes of abstraction and override the pictorial space. Collectively, these elements engage the viewer and require time to contemplate the surface and explore the nuances of meaning, although it may result in as many questions as answers. If this is a postmodern self-portrait, it is as personal and enigmatic as the person himself. 

The art of Michael Crabb may be acknowledged by a quote from one of his influencers, American Impressionist painter C.W. Mundy who stated, “the power of the suggestive is much greater than the statement of reality.” For Michael Crabb, art is a universal expression, as demonstrated by his support and admiration for contemporary artists. Art strives to find connectivity in new ways and is perceived through creative and original exploration of visual language. As a form of communication, art delves into the uniqueness of who we are as human beings and how we want our voice to be heard. For Michael Crabb, his art, craftsmanship, intellect, and passion are laid before us in his thoughtful and measured approach to object making.  It is our task to “see the man within” which we may conclude by identifying who created the quote “art is the window to man’s soul … ”  It was former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, and the more you know about her, the more impressed you may be about her accomplishments – Michael Crabb follows in that same tradition.