Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Camarra
Michael, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started up in Connecticut where I grew up drawing all day all the time. At some point early in high school I knew I wanted to go to art school and my parents went along with that. I knew that I should want to go to an art school in the city so my art teacher pointed me towards Pratt in Brooklyn. I had a great 4 years there and worked nonstop, I still hear a lot of my professors’ voices in my head to this day. I did have a sizable student debt, so after graduating I just got into design and art direction hoping to do some illustration on the side, but that didn’t really take off. I saw the struggle of some of my older friends who had amazing books and got into all these illustration annuals. So art sort of receded for me after school. It wasn’t til like 2017ish that I started painting here and there as sort of therapy, but it wasn’t until like 2018 that I took it seriously after getting laid off. I got into this show juried group show that Jonathan Levine was doing. That was when I just committed and really got into fine art.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I really think 2018 is where I really started. I got laid off from my full time job as a creative director, so I was freelancing. It was actually super balanced for me because I’d have gaps between gigs where I could 100 percent focus on painting. And of course I was so obsessed, I was able to stay up til all hours of the night. Then I had my daughter in July of that same year and everything changed, because now I had this big responsibility in this little person who also would keep me up til all hours of the night. I feel like I was so much younger then, so I had the will to stay up til 3 in the morning often and I’d just roll with it. I entered a bunch of juried exhibitions and did a lot of cold calls and submitting to galleries. But overall I had a lot of balance, and soon I had my first solo show “Whisper Forest” in 2020 at Arch Enemy Arts. I had solo shows after that, but I’d say the last year has been a bit of a struggle to balance raising a 5 year old, having a demanding full time job as a creative director, and painting. I’d say 2023 was a massive struggle for me, I had two solo shows that I think I burned myself out on doing in one year on the heels of another solo show at the end of 2022. Both of those shows were not nearly as successful as I had hoped, but early in the year I had heard whispers about the market getting a little tight. I had always heard these things happen sometimes, but it was a massive blow because I had poured a lot of my self into both of them and came out exhausted and sort of feeling unsure of myself. I think I’m still working through all that and trying to take it much easier this year.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I, like a lot of artists, have a day job. However I think I’m lucky that I have a creative day job so I’m not like wasting away. The thing that’s probably a bit challenging in having a creative job is that I get done with the day and I feel a bit more mentally drained for painting sometimes.
I’m a painter who really works exclusively in acrylics. My work really focuses on building my own mythologies in a post apocalyptic setting. I use a lot of pieces of post-consumer waste, and contemporary ephemera and repurpose them in this world. I really like to explore themes of our relationship to nature through all of this, tying in flora and fauna as it reclaims or reanimates relics of our current age.
I wouldn’t say pride, but I think I feel satisfied or grateful that I landed in a subject matter that I feel that I can explore for ages. Finding your voice and what you want to say is tough, and was the toughest thing for me as an artist because when I was in school, I studied illustration. The subject was already given to you, you just had to communicate it. I think having a style that I can point to was a nice side product of figuring out thematically what I wanted my work to be about.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I am intensely focused on history, and lately ancient history. So Casting Through Ancient Greece has been a podcast that I just voraciously tore through. But I’d say the comfort food for my ears/soul is the Dark Art Society podcast. The host Chet Zar is just a really warm light and so approachable in his interviews with artists I truly love. I do a lot of listening while I paint. A couple great books I read that I enjoyed were SPQR by Mary Beard, and 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mdcamarra.com
- Instagram: ihttps://www.instagram.com/mcamarra/