Artist Spotlight: Michael Hlousek-Nagle

Michael Hlousek-Nagle is currently finding inspiration in the ancient world, in Greek and Roman art, culture, and literature.

artist Michael standing in front of his work
Michael Hlousek-Nagle and works

How do you find inspiration?

Michael Hlousek-Nagle: I’m currently finding inspiration in the ancient world, in Greek and Roman art, culture, and literature. What fascinates me about these is that the more you study them, the more obvious it becomes that these classical modes of thought and expression still permeate our culture and our practice more than 2000 years later. Their literature told stories that are still used as templates for novels and movies today, there are constantly echoes of the ancient world’s culture threaded through our own.

What is the best thing about being an artist?

Michael Hlousek-Nagle: For me it is that I get to create a kind of virtual reality, to shape a world that resembles my inner life more closely than the exterior world ever could. With something as old-fashioned as a brush you can recreate the world so that it follows the laws of music rather than the laws of morality, you can compose a world that is poetry rather than information. Being an artist puts you in a place, (and it may be the only such place), where you can turn off the noise and babble of the world and construct a reality that is richer and deeper.

To see more of Michael’s work, visit: www.artsy.net/artist/michael-hlousek-nagle

 

woman standing nude with wolf
Michael Hlousek-Nagle, Ovid Paraphrases I – ‘Now, if you can, tell how you saw me naked’ (Diana watches the death of Actaeon), oil on canvas, 51 x 76 cm., 2021
figure of woman standing with eclipse behind her
Michael Hlousek-Nagle, Ovid Paraphrases III – The Companions of Circe, oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm., 2022