Hey everyone, this is Michael Hubbard, sophomore and eventual studio art major here. All lot of you may be wondering who I am, where I come from, and what kind of artist I strive to be. Well, I am the only child of two architects from Chicago and I come from a family of visually-atuned people. For example, my dad primarily works in architectural design, where he draws and lays out visual plans for buildings both on paper and in computer programs. My grandfather worked in interior painting since the age of sixteen, when he emigrated from Germany to this country, and then he began a interior painting business of his own in the mid-50s until his early retirement in the early 70s. He still paints out of habit and personal enjoyment.

My artistic interests began the first grade, where I would draws things like dinosaurs and fantastical creatures, and from then on, that interest expanded to illustration of the human body, an intense passion for film, and an ambition to combine my love for film and graphic art and pursue a future with it. I spent the past five or so years taking art classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and high school, going to movie theatre matinee showings whenever possible I thought were worth my time (some of those movies were what further fueled my interest in film-making), and participating at my high school film club and newspaper (where I wrote film critiques and drew cartoons). I have had my artwork showcased at my high school several times and was eventually awarded for my work on my graduation day. Today, at Lawrence University, I am active in the film production club, I shoot photographs and draw cartoons for the school newspaper, and I am a practicing studio assistant for my academic advisor.

As an artist and aspiring film-maker, I want to do two things: tell stories through images more than words and evoke feelings that are not often exploited. I want to steer away from making my subjects glamorous and seek to create raw, human emotions through tight composition and movement that is both grounded and exaggerated, all of which fosters an appreciation for primordial sensibilities.

Below are some artworks I did in the past, back when I was taking figure-drawing classes at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago during school breaks. Mind you, these were done back in my high school years, between 2011 and 2012:

This is a graphite and eraser portrait of a clothed woman posing in harsh light.

This is a painting of a man's head looking beyond. Unfortunately, some of paint blotches dribbling over the subject's nose, but at least, in my opinion, it lends some raw authenticity to the portrait as a whole. This almost sold for $600 to a faculty member in my high school at the closing end of my senior year, but later communications fell apart after a possible agreement was made, and the portrait is still in my possession. 

This is an unfinished drawing of Muhammad Ali. At the time, when I was working on this, I had an extremely difficult and opinionated instructor who did not take kindly to me for unmentionable and absurd reasons.