Michael Dailey
Michael Dailey (1938-2009) was born and raised in Iowa and received his BA and MFA in art at the University of Iowa. There he studied philosophy and art history and went on to be a successful abstract landscape painter interested in light, color, and nature.
Out of college, in 1963, Dailey moved to Seattle to teach painting and drawing at the University of Washington, before retiring in 1998. Despite his dedication to teaching, Dailey maintained a prolific studio practice throughout his entire life, making significant contributions to the contemporary art dialogue of the Pacific Northwest.
He was always interested in landscape, but while his earlier paintings were more representational, after the 1960s, they evolved into abstract colorist landscapes. His monumental canvases were luminous color-saturated paintings that reduced land to light, color, and atmospheric perspective- he refused to explain them, forcing the viewer to come to their own conclusions.
Dailey died of pancreatic cancer in 2009, and though his passing was sudden, it was not unexpected. In 1975, Dailey was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative neurological illness that affects the central nervous system, which permanently changed his approach to painting. In response to his physical limitations, he would set up his canvases to allow himself to paint while sitting down. In the 1980s, Dailey had to change his medium to acrylic on canvas rather than oil- as the lead in certain oil paints of this time were exacerbating his multiple sclerosis. The acrylic paint was harder to layer and blend as it dried faster and it was less luminous than oil, but eventually he learned to seamlessly mix the colors to create a sense of depth and horizon.
Dailey’s paintings are inspired by philosophy, Renaissance master Piero Della Francesca, pointilist painter Georges Seurat, Chinese landscape painting, and the dramatic nature of the Pacific Northwest. These inspirations informed his approach to composition, light, and artistic themes. He was not inspired by the art of his time, such as Andy Warhol and pop art, but looked to the past in order to inspire his abstract paintings of the future; using the themes of the past alongside new abstract painting. Thus, every work is made to inspire viewers to think about their place in the landscape emotionally and psychologically rather than explicitly and simply intellectually.