Michael Birawer
Encyclopedia
Michael Birawer is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

. Born and based in St. Paul, Minnesota, he is known for his three-dimensional, surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 paintings of urban settings and their inhabitants.

Artwork

Birawer, a graduate of St. Paul's College of Visual Arts
College of Visual Arts
The College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is a private, accredited, four-year college of art and design offering a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in fine arts, graphic design, illustration, interdisciplinary design studies, and photography. The fine arts degree offers concentrations in...

, exhibited his work at art fairs and local galleries, including a studio owned by his brother. His work combines oil and acrylic paints with layers of sculpted wood that he dubbed "pop outs."

Birawer first achieved major notice in 2001 with his series Scenes from the Twin Cities, which consisted of 20 local landmarks including the Hennepin Avenue Bridge
Hennepin Avenue Bridge
The Hennepin Avenue Bridge is the structure that carries Hennepin County State Aid Highway 52, Hennepin Avenue, across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota at Nicollet Island. Officially, it is the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge, in honor of the 17th-century explorer Louis Hennepin, who...

, First Avenue, W.A. Frost and the Grandview Theater. In an interview, Birawer dubbed his style "cat art," citing his inspiration from the cartoonish rendering of felines with elongated features and excessively vibrant hues.

In 2003, Birawer was the winner of the year's poster contest to promote the St. Paul Art Crawl, a citywide celebration of the visual arts. His design "Chestnut and W. 7th" was used in the advertising and marketing of the event. In 2007, he was commissioned to create the official poster for the Minnesota State Fair
Minnesota State Fair
The Minnesota State Fair is the state fair of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Its slogan is "The Great Minnesota Get-Together." It is the 2nd largest fair in the United States, and the largest state fair in the United States in terms of average daily attendance, though the State Fair of Texas runs...

.

In 2009, Birawer was commissioned to create the artwork "The Art of Parking" for Amano McGann's entry into the International Parking Institute Conference and Expo. The booth was recognized by the committee and earned the award as the best at the Expo.

The Minnesota Twins
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...

 commissioned Birawer in 2010 to create his interpretation of the team's new stadium, Target Field
Target Field
Target Field is a baseball park located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the home ballpark of the Minnesota Twins, the city's Major League Baseball franchise. It is the franchise's sixth ballpark and third in Minnesota. The Twins moved to Target Field for the 2010 Major League Baseball...

. The work, entitled, "Target Field - Home of the Twins", is on exhibit in the Minnesota Twins team offices at the ballpark.

Influences

  • Elizabeth Murray
    Elizabeth Murray (artist)
    Elizabeth Murray was an American painter, printmaker and draughtsman. Her works are in many major public collections, including those of the Solomon R...

  • Edward Hopper
    Edward Hopper
    Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...

  • Red Grooms
    Red Grooms
    Red Grooms is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life...

  • Frank Stella
    Frank Stella
    Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...

  • Laurence Stephen Lowry
    L. S. Lowry
    Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist born in Barrett Street, Stretford, Lancashire. Many of his drawings and paintings depict nearby Salford and surrounding areas, including Pendlebury, where he lived and worked for over 40 years at 117 Station Road , opposite St...

  • Lyonel Feininger

External links

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