Michael T. Porter
Artist | Painter | Creative
Based in Los Angeles
"The advancement of our culture and civilization was not just done by math and science but also with the arts. Michael T. Porter has contributed to both fields!"
-Joji Angeline
Michael T. Porter
The Renaissance Man
…challenges the Conservative Mind and unlocks the door for the Open Minded. He leads one into the depths of the uncommon paradigm…
Michael T. Porter, a Neo-Expressionist Artist has been living in an artist’s world since he was a young boy. He claims to be an artist even though he had worked for NASA’s Space Shuttle Program for over three decades. His last senior position was the Landing Gear Specialist and Deceleration Manager. He was responsible for bringing the astronauts back to earth safely.
Michael T. started painting while in elementary school. He continued painting in high school, college, and for decades while working for the Space Program. Painting has been his passion throughout the years. Presently, he is enjoying retirement and devoting his attention to his art by attending workshops on regular basis. There is no doubt that Michael T’s creative and adventurous mind supported him to solve highly complex aerospace problems which has garnered him with numerous prestigious awards from NASA. His mathematical prowess certainly helped him maintain a financially secure career which enabled him to pursue his artistic endeavors. This meant that he did not have to worry about selling his art. Michael T. was quite happy to paint for hours after work, and during his free time on the weekends and vacation.
He experimented and expressed in various ways his artistic creativity in different mediums such as charcoal, oil, pencil, acrylic and pastel on canvass or on paper at his own studio, workshop venues, and onsite location. With the huge amount of art work, he produced over the years. It’s very clear that he is driven to express for the sake of art in itself, clear evidence of soul expression at its purest level! In his art portrayal, one could clearly hear the shimmering beauty of joy or sadness that emanates or pierces into the deepest depths of his soul as if one could hear the painfully resplendent Rachmaninoff piano concerto. Furthermore, he unconsciously challenged the conventional art forms like Prokofiev’s violation of the traditional music form and structure that gave tremors to the musical world that was scorned by critics at some point.
Michael T.’s enthusiasm and drive for his artistic pursuit was also inspired and propelled by the encouraging remarks of his former Art teachers, Painting Professors, and Art Critic that his “unique talents and ability to think outside the box shows a different and refreshing way of looking at art that could possibly put him on the map one day”. Consequently, his work was given a spot and displayed at Soho Galleries in New York in the 90’s.
Being a renaissance man, Michael T.’s talent was not just limited to visual arts and math. He is also competent in creating precise musical rhythmic patterns with his set of professional drums that delights Jazz and Pop music enthusiasts. His art teacher remarked, “Michael’s sensitivity, insight and passion in his art, must also come from his colorful and intuitive musical performance of his instrument”. His sense of rhythm. musical shadings and dynamics is quite remarkable for a musician who did not have a lot of formal music training. He attributed this to the fact that he had years of Tap Dance lessons at a very early age.
As a man with wide spectrum of interests, he has devoured himself in all sorts of cultural activities. During travels around the globe, particularly Europe and across the United States, Michael has visited numerous museums on the arts, history and natural resources. While immersing himself in the museum of interest, he was also delighted in other art forms, such as the opera, classical symphonies, jazz ensembles, chamber music, ballet, Broadway shows, musical plays, and documentaries of various artists and composers.
In recent years, he has been captivated with women’s figures. Hence, he has produced hundreds of women’s Figurative Paintings which is kind of loose, raw, primitive-like but highly emotional. He applied bold, bright, luscious, and fluorescent colors that may shock conservative and conventionally oriented critics. Unquestionably, his paintings will open new vistas especially to people who are open-minded and forward thinkers. His passionate art may lead someone to a different plane of perspective and unravel some deep philosophical thoughts. His work had been influenced by artists like Willem de Kooning, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and David Hockney.
While busy with his artistic activities, he is certainly conscious of his health and fitness. He makes sure he has the time to exercise by playing tennis, golf, and working out at the gym. From time to time, he goes roller blading along the beach where he resides. He eats nutritious food to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Like most wine connoisseurs, Michael T. has an appetite for dining out. He enjoys pairing wine with food from different ethnic origins. At the same time, he learns the cultural background of the foods he is sampling. Michael T. meditates daily to connect to his Creator. He volunteers his time by offering his artistic and musical talents to Non-Profit organization. He shares his passions, cultural escapades and life blessings with his Special Significant Other.
Timeline of Michael T. Porter Painting Style Development
1990s Red & Blue Period & Kiss Series
In the fall of 1989 Michael T Porter moved from the suburbs of Los Angeles to downtown Long Beach, California, to a large high rise two bedroom apartment. Before that MT Porter had lived in a one bedroom condo 20 miles southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. The new apartment was twice as large as the condo with a large 12’ x 15’ master bedroom that became the artist studio. This was the first dedicated room as an artist studio for MT Porter.
In 1990 MT Porter started producing figurative paintings either of primary blue colors or primary red colors. Using these unrealistic skin tones provided more freedom of expression allowing
more emotions into the work. The “Sad Boy” self portrait was the first blue painting. After completing two blue paintings, Porter started the red paintings. This is a similar approach as with Picasso, when Early in Picasso career painted his “Blue Period”, then Picasso changed to his “Rose Period”, before Picasso stated his revolutionary Cubist paintings.
The Red paintings were couples kissing or loving each other. Later MT Porter developed a series of Kiss art works using oil & acrylic paint, oil pastels, and ink washes, all completed in the 1990s, and all were very emotional. Four (4) of the Kiss series were given to very close friends and relatives. They all really loved the Kiss art works. MT Porter further explored beyond the Kiss series to the so called Forbidden Art, like Expressionist Austrian painter Egon Schiele, the very emotional subject of sex itself. This exploration into a very emotional subjectmatter expanded MT Porter’s Art. He was able to obtain more freedom of expression especially into his future works.
German Expressionism
A former Gallery owner, commented on Michael T. Porter’s Red and Blue paintings, that they were very unique and original and at a high level, possibly even such as to get you on the map. That’s the “Art Map” he was referring to. But commented that of course important gallery shows with art critics reviews would be required to obtain such importance. He further commented that these new works are somewhat reminiscent of the German Expressionist movement. And like the German Expressionist artist Kirshner, MT Porter would paint images quickly. But unlike Kirshner, Porter may rework his paintings further by adding more color or additional figures over a period of months or even years between rework efforts.
1992 New York Exhibitions
In 1992 MT Porter’s had four of his paintings exhibited in 2 group shows in a SoHo New York gallery. Afterwards, the SoHo gallery offer Porter a 3 Man show, that would only exhibit art from 3 Artists, potentially 8 of MT Porter works would be on view in New York City. But at that time Porter was struggling with the development of his art. After the two group show exhibitions, MT decided to completely remove his art from further exhibition and to concentrate solely on creating art without any Market pressure.
1996 Freedom to make Original Art
Creating Art without any Art market pressure is a similar approach to art as with the famous New York artist Jeffery Koons who in the early part of his career had a good paying job to finance his art. Jeffery Koons quote “I could make exactly what art I wanted to make. And I would always know that I didn't need the art market." MT Porter professional career provided complete freedom to produce art whatever way he wanted, and as with Jeffery Koons, did not need the art market. MT in 1996, started going back
to basics, attending live model workshops in downtown Long Beach, producing charcoal drawings, ink drawings, and pastels works on paper. He also experimented with oil pastels. He did this for 6 years.
2002 Breakthrough
Michael T Porter’s art had significant development starting in 2002. MT decided to bring acrylic paint to the live model workshops. Before 2002, most of MT Porter’s paintings were completed using oil paint.
The new acrylic paints besides being easy to clean up being water base had much brighter colors compared to oil paints. Even fluorescent colors were available and Fluorescent Pink for example became one of MT new favorite color. The new works after 2002 were much brighter and more loose
with the increased flow quality of water based paint. Porter almost completely stop producing ink and, charcoal drawings as well as using pastels and oil pastels. MT went back to concentrate more on
painting again but with the new lessons gained from his recent pastels, ink, and charcoal drawing effort. M.T. Porter change from oil paint to acrylic, was significant and allow for the use of brighter colors, including fluorescent colors. Most of the art pieces on this web site are completed after 2002. Most of the works are figurative pieces from live models, using bright unnatural colors. Porter also produced landscapes during this time using bright unnatural colors.
2011 Expressionism Using Scribbles
One day in the summer of 2011, MT Porter was greatly upset when he started painting the live model at one of the Saturday’s morning workshop at the Angel Gate Cultural Center in Los Angeles. MT would boldly draw scribbles using oil pastels, producing very emotional movements to help release his anger. The results produced significant more expressive works, a major change to MT Porter’s body of work. Later on Porter might add some thin acrylic paint to enhance the image. Then later MT went back to starting the work using thicker acrylic paint and adding oil pastels scribbles afterwards.
2019 Thin Acrylic Washes
In the winter, March 2019, during a Tuesday night session at the Los Angeles Angel Gate Center live model workshop, MT Porter brought some small loose primed canvases. He laid them on a table and started to use thin water downed acrylic paint to make the female images. The way the image would dissolve and bleed had a most wonderful effect. Again a new type of style
developed, called Acrylic Washes on canvas. This approach does not work with paper. Porter progressed this style to larger canvases and besides the thin paint, he would also add mages with thicker paint resulting with the masterpiece “Girls Night Out”.
2020 Tree Paintings
In 2020, the pandemic hit and all the live model workshops were closed, MT started going to the nearby East Regional El Dorado Park in Long Beach California. There he started producing experimentations in Landscape paintings using stunning, yet unnatural colors, with gestural bands of color to convey mood and emotions. The masterpiece “Tree of Life” painted in 2020, at the El Dorado Park located in Long Beach, California is an excellent example of this new landscape style. Porter has concentrated his effort especially on rendering the trees using bright unnatural colors. MT calls these new works “Tree Paintings “.
2022 Tree & Figures Combination
In 2022, M.T. Porter started to combined the figurative images with the tree or landscape images. M.T. would either reworked original figurative paintings by adding trees for example, or reworking landscapes by added figurative images. This new approach to landscapes and also combing figurative images to landscapes has generated some magnificent new works of art.