Michael Stevenson is an artist based in Baltimore who works in painting, printmaking, music, and occasional performance. He’s driven by a mix of hands-on making, curiosity about history, and an interest in how people find meaning through looking. His work often comes from experimenting in the studio and following ideas across different materials and traditions.
He studied painting at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada, with additional time at UQAM (also in Montréal) and the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, Germany. During those years, he also co-founded the post-hardcore band Bliss, touring widely and releasing several recordings. The energy, collaboration, and improvisation from that period still shape how he works visually.
Stevenson later earned an MFA in Painting and Printmaking and an MA in Art History at Arizona State University. His research focused on early Mexican manuscript traditions and how stories were communicated visually without relying on written language. That work deepened his interest in how a narrative can be suggested through marks, symbols, and structure rather than direct illustration. He also spent several years teaching in Florence, Italy, where he became interested in how historical figures and motifs could be reimagined inside abstract compositions.
In the studio, he uses abstraction as a way to explore relationships, memory, and the sense of a story unfolding without specific characters or scenes. His paintings and prints often repeat or transform certain shapes, creating rhythms that viewers can follow in their own way. Instead of telling a literal story, the work offers an experience—something that shifts as you spend more time with it.
Stevenson received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, was a full fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, and an associate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts, in Marin County, California. He founded the printmaking studio at Angel’s Gate Cultural Center in Los Angeles, which has now been active for more than fifteen years. He also ran Yuri-G, an independent gallery inside Maryland Art Place in downtown Baltimore. His work is held in both public and private collections across North America and Europe.
MFA - Painting/Printmaking, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
MA (Art History) - Aztec/Renaissance, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Hochschule der Künste, Berlin
BFA - Painting/Printmaking, Concordia University (Montreal)
Laurentian Library, Florence, Italy
Materials and technical analysis of the Florentine Codex (16th Century Mexican Indian manuscript - post-conquest)
Apolstolic Libraries, Vatican City, Italy
Materials and technical analysis of the Codex Borgia (pre-conquest Mexican Indian manuscript)
ASU Art Museum, Tempe, AZ
Provided primary research to Director for “Contemporary Art from Cuba: Irony and Survival on the Utopian Island” catalog essays, inspection and research of items in permanent collect, wrote essays on items in collections, essays published online
2006
Tradición, Interpretación,y Transculturación: El diálogo cultural entre España y Hispanoamérica (siglos XVI – XIX), 52nd International Congress of Americanists, Seville, Spain
2002
Guest Artist, Monoprint 2002, CSU Chico CA
Presentation, Norman Rockwell, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
Presentation, “Qing Perspective,” Faculty Symposium, CSU, Chico, CA
2001
Guest Printmaker, Monoprint 2001, CSU, Chico, CA
2000
Visiting Artist, Metropolitan Arts, Phoenix, AZ
Guest Printmaker, Monoprint 2000, CSU, Chico, CA
2013
Pollock-Krasner Grant
ArtScape, Peripatetic Press, Kickstarter Project, funded
2011
“Louis,Louis,” Kickstarter Project, funded
2004
Affiliate Artist, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA
Full Fellowship Award, Vermont Studio Center, Vermont, April 2004
2000
Rock, Paper, Scissors Printmaking Fellowship, ASU
1998
Irene Peggy Lamb ASU Art Museum Internship
2022
“The Black, the Red”: A Physical Description of the Codex Borgia,
2006
East Valley Tribune, January
Artweek, “Michael Stevenson at Angel’s Gate Cultural Center”, November
2002
Art in America, December
shade magazine, June
Arizona Republic, June
2018
Blossom, Yuri-G, Baltimore, MD
2017
Loud Out, Gallery 1086, Chico, CA
Your Strengths Made You Stronger When You Were Younger, Goucher College, Baltimore, MD
2014
Komono, Gallery 788, Baltimore, MD
2010
Idea de Bello, Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art, Phoenix, AZ
2006
Belle Epoque, Angel’s Gate Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA
Belle Epoque, One Sansome, San Francisco, CA
2005
Belle Epoque, Mesa Contemporary Arts, Mesa, AZ
Municipal museum
Recent Paintings, On Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003
New Non-Fiction, New Urban Art, Phoenix, AZ
2001
Tres Riches Heures, New Urban Art, Phoenix, AZ
2000
Young Bickley Geiger, Phoenix, AZ
Harry Wood Gallery, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Volumes, Phoenix, AZ
2025
Best in Show, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD
2013
Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD
2012
Baker’s Artist Exhibition, Station North, Baltimore, MD
2011
Salon Series, Jordan Faye Block, Baltimore, MD
2005
Mesa Contemporary Arts, City of Mesa Municipal Museum, Mesa, AZ
2004
Gallery C, Hermosa Beach, CA
2003
Angel’s Gate Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA
Arden 2, Los Angeles, CA
2002
Snidle Fine Arts, Chico, CA
University Art Gallery, Chico, CA
Kendall Hall, CSU Chico, Chico, CA
ASU Art Museum, ASU, Tempe, AZ
2001
New Urban Art, Phoenix, AZ
Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
Goucher College, Baltimore, MD
Arizona State University Art Museum, Permanent Collection
Janet Turner Museum, Chico, CA
School of Art, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Mesa Contemporary Arts, City of Mesa Art Museum, Mesa, AZ
Viking Development, Inc., Scottsdale, AZ
Quarles and Brady, Streich Lang, Phoenix, AZ
Greenberg Traurig, Phoenix, AZ
Roshka, Heyman and DeWulf, Phoenix, AZ
