MICHAEL HERMESH, born in 1955, studied art at Okanagan University College and the Vancouver School of Art (Emily Carr). He also has extensive experience in furniture design and ornamental carving. From his residence and self-constructed studio, he continues to indulge his passion for sculpting, as well as hold drawing workshops and sculpture courses. His primary interest is figurative sculpture.

Artist's Statement:

My art is shaped by how I view the world. I do not believe that there is a state of grace in life. Life is life - it is dynamic and it is always a struggle. Integrity, awareness and dignity remain constants. These are elements in life that are unchanging and real that can be spent or thrown away. For me this is the mystic and beauty of life and the underlying subject matter of all my work.

The dramas are entirely fictitious but very real. Passions and dreams and stress really describe reality better than physical descriptions of objects.

I said in an earlier artist statement that truth is an orphan waiting to be named - once named it becomes a lie. While this may not stand up as a metaphor I do believe it has some validity. A piece of art is a symbol that as rendered by the artist in the act of creation and has it’s own unique meaning. It can have all the nuances, history, contradictions and flavours that a word can have when used. It is complete in itself. To over explain is like having to explain a joke – the spirit of the thing is gone.

Good art is narrative, (fighting words for some I know), where the outcome is indeterminate. It is not the job of an artist to tell people what to think, it is to see truth and to depict it.

The artist is a mystic, “a bell weather”, a shaman, and the guy with the measuring tape mapping out the jail cell. The artist’s viewpoint is vital to our greater sanity.