The Westport Book Shop is pleased to welcome artist Michael Brennecke as its guest art exhibitor for the month of March, at the Book Shop’s Drew Friedman Art Place.  

Michael’s focus is the creation of abstract paintings, in oils or watercolors. He typically begins with a non-representational drawing, employing random, intuitive movement and accident to create a composition without any preconceived image. Then, in the tradition of Rorshact, through the addition of color and texture, he develops and emphasizes the evocative parts of the image that draw his attention.  While his compositions are conceived as abstractions, they may still evoke a sense of landscape or figure, or have the suggestion of natural geology, or appearance of rock formations, vegetation or water. 

Michael describes his process with each piece as a mental landscape, or overgrown archeology in which he has to tease out an underlying structure and sense of space.  While some of his works, including those on exhibit at the Book Shop, are mostly in the landscape category, sometimes his compositions evolve to be more figurative, even portrait-like.   Michael names his works after completion, depending on visceral impressions.

Michael is exhibiting four recent oil paintings at the Book Shop:  

1. “Night Lights”, which turned out as an inadvertent homage to Van Gogh’s “Starry Night Over the Rhone”, of Arles lights reflected on the river;

2. “Paradise”, which ironically refers to the California town destroyed by the Camp fire.  This piece walks the line between the beauty and destructive power of fire;

3. “Monteverde”, evocative of the sunlit, vine-draped rainforest area of Costa Rica; and 

4. “Backside”, which the artist says he has no clear idea about.  “It is possibly somewhat figurative.” 

Michael attended The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and earned a BFA at Tufts University.  He is a member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists, the Ridgefield Guild of Artists, the Rowayton Arts Center and the The Artists Collective of Westport.  Michael is a lifelong resident of Westport.  You can see more of Michael’s works on his website, at www.michaelbrennecke.com

Westport Book Shop, a nonprofit used book store, is downtown Westport’s only source for gently used and antiquarian books, vintage vinyl records, and other media.  It is located at 23 Jesup Road, right across Jesup Green from the Westport Library.

The Book Shop’s “Drew Friedman Art Place” is an area of the store dedicated to exhibiting the work of community artists year-round, on a rotating basis.  Miggs Burroughs, a Trustee of the Drew Friedman Community Arts Center, and a founding member of The Artists Collective of Westport, is curating these exhibits, which change monthly.

The art exhibit is open to the public during the Book Shop’s business hours:  Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from Noon to 5 p.m. (closed Mondays).  Michael Brennecke’s artwork will be on exhibit through March 31, 2022.  All artwork on exhibit is available for purchase.