Fine Art Canvas – Giclee Print 48×48 – Breathing Color Urth Canvas
Get to know Artist Michael Grasso
I was born in Rome, New York, a small town about halfway between Albany and Syracuse. I grew up in Sacramento however, and it was there that I began my career in the film business.
By the mid-seventies I had opened my own production company and by the early 80’s we had moved and was based in New York City. There, I continued directing commercials for the next 30 years and for most of the major advertising accounts in the world. My first feature film, co-written and co-produced with my brother and directed by me is titled “The Umbrella Man” and was released November 2016. The film garnered several first place awards in film festivals and can be seen on iTunes and Amazon.
My Influences
My first love, however, has always been fine art. One day, long before I began my career in film, I was wandering through a book store and came across a collection of works by Rene Magritte.
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On the cover was his famous painting entitled "Time Transfixed". Well, I stood there, transfixed, for what seemed like an hour.
It was as though a door had opened onto a potentially limitless landscape of ideas. The notion of seeing things outside the boundaries of everyday reality became for me the driving force of everything I did after.
My education in art, I’m proud to say, began with Gary Pruner. Gary is a well known Northern California artist who was teaching high school art at the time.
Gary really nurtured the desire I had to explore new and different ways of seeing and representing reality.
My process
All the work pictured here began with photographs I have taken. After painstaking hours in Photoshop the piece is then printed onto aluminum using a dye-infused process. I prefer a satin finish which brings out incredible detail and a wonderful luster to the colors.
Most of them are very large, in the 40 to 60 inches wide range so as to maximize their impact. They are mounted on a hidden aluminum frame 1 1/2 inches deep to give the appearance that the piece is floating off the wall.