Michael and
Tole

Michael Tole is a figurative painter currently living in Tempe, Arizona with his wife and two daughters.  Born in 1979 in Dallas, Texas, he graduated from UT Austin with a BFA in painting in 2000.  A year later, he became the youngest artist ever represented by Dallas’ Conduit Gallery where he showed for 15 years.  For the first half of his career, he created photo-based paintings of retail interiors that explored issues of class, and the relationship of painting and photography.  After relocating to Tempe, his work experienced a significant shift to fantastical figurative inventions based on pop culture imagery he has encountered via his two daughters’ taste in music videos, and his new proximity to the twin capitals of America’s fantasy industrial complex--Hollywood and Las Vegas.  The new work attempts to contextualize their brand of Disney-esque hedonism within a broader historical view of Western visual culture.  Mr. Tole’s career includes shows in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, and New Orleans.  He has won several grants, including the $50,000 Hunting Art Prize, and the Kimbrough Grant.  His work has been reviewed in Art Forum International, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, and Hi-Fructose.com.