Michael Stevenson (Baltimore, MD) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, printmaking, music, and performance. His work engages deeply with both material process and cultural narrative, often bridging the sensibilities of contemporary abstraction with the intellectual rigor of historical inquiry.
Stevenson received his BFA in Painting from Concordia University in Montréal, Quebec, Canada, with additional studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal, QUebec, Canada, and the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, Germany. Parallel to his formal training, he co-founded and toured extensively with the post-hardcore band, Bliss, out of Montreal, Canada, releasing multiple recordings that reflected his early engagement with the aesthetics of intensity, collectivity, and improvisation—qualities that continue to shape his visual practice.
He later earned an MFA in Painting and Printmaking and an MA in Art History at Arizona State University, in Phoenix, Arizona. His academic research focused on indigenous Mexican manuscript traditions during the early colonial period.
Stevenson’s work approaches abstraction as a site where narrative, history, and perception intersect. He often develops recurring forms that suggest relationships or sequences, evoking the sense of a story without relying on representation. His paintings and prints explore how meaning can arise through rhythm, structure, and visual interaction rather than through depiction. In this way, his practice treats abstraction not as the absence of narrative, but as a means of constructing one—through the movement of color, gesture, and form across the surface.
Stevenson is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, a Full Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center, and an Affiliate Artist residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County, California. He founded the Angel’s Gate Cultural Center Printmaking Studio in Los Angeles, California, now active for over fifteen years. Before the pandemic, he directed Yuri-G, an independent gallery housed within Maryland Art Place in downtown Baltimore. His work is represented in public and private collections across North America and Europe.
Collections
Goucher College, Baltimore, MD
Arizona State University Art Museum, Permanent Collection, Tempe, AZ
Janet Turner Museum, Chico, CA
School of Art, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Mesa Contemporary Arts, City of Mesa Art Museum, Mesa, AZ
Viking Development, Inc., Scottsdale, AZ
Quarles and Brady, Streich Lang, Phoenix, AZ
Greenberg Traurig, Phoenix, AZ
Roshka, Heyman and DeWulf, Phoenix, AZ