Michael DeSutter

A bit of a departure visually from my previous work, but this time exploring movement through sets of colors bars. Also using literal movement (fanning these bars) to inform the compositions.

Inspired by my late grandfather’s fascination with charting market growth and the numerous bar graphs that fill the pages of 18 years (1954-1972) worth of Fortune magazines he left me, I deconstructed the bar graph while conducting an inward exploration around my own desire to chart growth, personal growth. 

“Counting Bars,” the title itself a nod to my grandfather’s love of music, finds me looking at my personal growth over the past four decades, from rural middle-American to east coaster, and now westerner(?), questioning what my relationship with my grandfather might be like if he were alive today. 

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This body of work is created entirely from the pages of Fortune magazines the my grandfather left me.

Over a six month period of the pandemic, with the support of New Collection, I sifted through these very pages to collect and sort colors to create each bar and the backing pages these compositions are created on.

Selected Works

  • Counting Bars

    25” x 40”

    Mixed Media

  • Counting Bars

    25” x 40”

    Mixed Media