RENO, NV – Like, Love, Lust: Michael Sarich, the first full-scale survey of work by the artist, opens at the Nevada Museum of Art (NMA) on January 26, 2008. Michael Sarich is among the most prolific artists working in northern Nevada today. Since coming to Reno in 1989 to teach art at the University of Nevada, Sarich has gained attention for his multi-layered and densely packed compositions that overflow with symbols and icons that he has incorporated into his own pictorial language. Like, Love, Lust features works ranging from the artist’s early multi-layered personal narratives to his recent social commentaries. The exhibition will be on view through March 30, 2008.

“In the time I’ve been in Reno, I have quickly learned that Michael Sarich is a key figure in the northern Nevada art scene,” said David Walker, NMA Executive Director / CEO. “The NMA is honored and excited to present this survey of Mike’s work to the community.”

Sarich uses drawing, painting, and ceramics to relate tales of his childhood, past loves and family relationships. Some symbols are used to indirectly critique the commercialism stemming from globalization, while other images are culled from past experiences that are deeply personal. Sarich’s practice of mark-making has become increasingly complex, while his iconography has evolved from the deeply personal to the broadly social by way of symbolic and popular references.

Sarich’s early works, produced in the late seventies and eighties, are visual diaries overflowing with unrefined, graffiti-like marks that are scribbled and scrawled across paper or carved into wood. Many of these marks refer to his childhood, some are love letters written to past girlfriends, and others are snapshots of late nights spent at the bar. Influenced by Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Hairy Who, and Jean Dubuffet, as well as children’s art and Outsider art, Sarich uses marks in an effort to find a more honest, direct and harsh means of expression.

Sarich’s integration of contemporary social symbols and pop culture iconography into his work began in the late nineties and continues today. His most recent paintings and sculptures combine the symbols of Mickey Mouse and the Virgin Mary with recurring personal references to fish, body parts, props, and beach balls. Often a large, centralized icon is surrounded or overlaid with densely packed, lyrical marks and drawings that lure the viewer into the work. Mickey Mouse no longer represents the “happiest place on Earth”, and the Wal-Mart smiley face seems emptied of its original meaning.

“I am a storyteller,” said Sarich, “I use iconography that is taken from symbols that have taken on too much importance. They’re not bad symbols, just saturation. It’s about the romantic and the innocent that has taken on a strange twist.”

In December 2007, Sarich was selected as one of twenty-five recipients to receive a prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors. Past grant recipients include Doh-ho Suh, Kara Walker, Mark Dion, Tom Friedman, and Janine Antoini. The Joan Mitchell Foundation celebrates the legacy of Joan Mitchell, an American artist, by encouraging the ambitions of developing artists.

Raised on the south-side of Chicago in the 1960s, Sarich studied at Northern Illinois University and the University of Oklahoma, and taught at various institutions across the United States. Sarich was hired as an Associate Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1989. In addition to Sarich’s recent Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, he is also the recipient of a Bemis Foundation Fellowship and an NEA Nevada State Award for the Visual Arts. Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with the debilitating illness known as Parkinson’s disease, and although it has already had a drastic impact on his speech and motor capacities, he continues to pursue his work with an intensity that is greater than ever.

Sarich’s work has been on exhibit in galleries and museums across the United States, as well as Germany and Belgium. His art is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Universities of Nevada, Las Vegas and Reno, and the Bemis Center for the Arts.

CATALOGUE
The NMA has published a full-color catalogue to accompany the exhibition. The publication features essays by Ann Wolfe, NMA Curator, Kirk Robertson, art critic, and Robert Sill, Assistant Director of Art at the Illinois State Museum. Copies will be available for $50 at the NMA’s Store.

Like, Love, Lust: Michael Sarich will be on exhibit January 26 through March 30, 2008 at the Nevada Museum of Art, Donald W. Reynolds Center for the Visual Arts, E. L. Wiegand Gallery located at 160 West Liberty Street in downtown Reno. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm, late on Thursdays until 8 pm; closed Mondays and national holidays. Admission: free for NMA members; $10 adults, $8 students/seniors. For more information, please call 775.329.3333 or visit www.nevadaart.org.