Michael Hall is a Bay Area artist and educator whose drawings, paintings, and videos examine personal and mass-produced objects made unique through their idiosyncratic wear and tear. Hall focuses on how these common objects act as markers of time and place while also conjuring personal histories, collective desires and cultural phenomena He gravitates towards items that bridge connections and disseminate information, from traditional formats like books and records to ever-evolving digital artifacts like QR codes. Hall focuses on the act of recording, attempting to slow the inevitable march of time through mindful observation, patient rendering contrasted with the random aesthetics of “rabbit hole” research. Hall’s renderings of these objects (sometimes along with actual objects) confuse the reading of representation and hint at the complexity of belief, how we exchange information, and its impact on our lives.
Hall is a recipient of both a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant and a MFA Fellowship at the Headlands Center for the Arts. His recent Bay Area exhibitions include Townsend Center for the Humanities, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Southern Exposure, Marx and Zavattero Gallery and SF MOMA Artist Gallery. His work has been featured in group exhibitions nationally and throughout California as well as numerous online and print publications, including New American Painting. Hall’s work is in the collections of the Microsoft Art Collection, McEvoy Family Collection, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Dale Center for the Study of War & Society, Deborah and Andy Rappaport Collection, The Collection of Roselyne Swig, and the Collection of Jeff Kelly and Hung Liu among others.
Hall was born in San Diego, California to military parents and has lived in Japan, Russia, England, and France. Hall received his BFA from the California College of the Arts and his MFA from Mills College. He currently lives and works in Berkeley, California with his wife, the artist Julia Goodman and their child. For 13 years he taught at Creative Growth Art Center, where he began the first video production class for artists with developmental disabilities. Additionally, he has taught at Mills College, UC Berkeley and Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art. He has participated on the curatorial board at Southern Exposure in San Francisco and the board of Creative Growth Art Center. Hall is currently an Associate Professor, Painting and Drawing at California State University East Bay.
