While Michel is adept with painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and digital imaging, this exhibition features a body of monotypes created during a creative fugue in 1997. A monotype is a one-of-a-kind print made by painting on a sheet of metal or glass and transferring the still-wet-painting to a sheet of paper by hand or with an etching press. Monotype printing is not a multiple-replica process since each print is unique. Michel uses this technique to create spontaneous, improvisational drawings he calls Monkey Paintings that are, in many ways, the visual equivalent to speaking in tongues. According to Halsey Gallery Director, Mark Sloan, these paintings “contain an infectious energy that enlivens not only the surface of the prints, but also the room in which they are displayed. Michel has produced a remarkably consistent body of work referencing everyone from William Blake, to Adolf Wolfli, to Miles Davis.”

A native of Atlanta, Michel began teaching Studio Art at the College of Charleston in 1973 after receiving his MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. His works have been shown in many exhibitions nationally, including the Shidoni Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition in Santa Fe, NM and Nationsbank Center in Atlanta. He has received important commissions from the South Carolina Arts Commission, the College of Charleston, Fonderia Del Chiaro in Pietrasanta, Italy, and his statue of George Washington graces Washington Park in Charleston. Michel retired from the College in 2004 to spend full time in his studio practice.