Artists

Artist Biography

Michael Collins

Collins is known primarily for observational paintings of still life, landscape, and figures. His approach to painting conventions within these familiar genres has been described as wonderfully idiosyncratic. He paints from set-ups of everyday objects and occasionally found compositions in the home, commercial environments or local landscapes. Collins works in a straightforward, direct technique, recording his observations in multiple sittings.

Collins studied at the Kunst Akademie Karlsruhe in 1991-92 and received his MFA in Painting from The University of Michigan School of Art in 1992. He spent an academic year in Rome in 1995-96. After emigrating to New Zealand in 1997, he taught drawing, painting and critical studies at Design & Arts College of New Zealand from 1999-2016. He lives and works in Christchurch.

Margret Duncan. Michael Collins, in GPS, Ed. by Victoria Edwards, (Christchurch: Design & Arts College of New Zealand and Auckland: Whitecliffe College of Art, 2005), 9.