Gast Michels - Composition

Will be shipped without frame, with frame at seller's address. Gast Michels grew up in Consdorf in the immediate vicinity of the Luxembourg forest area Mullerthal. While his mother managed the household, his father was a commercial agent. In his spare time he liked to make oil paintings of the Mullerthal. Between 1974 and 1980 Gast Michels studied visual arts at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts Saint Luc in Liège. In 1980 he moved back to Luxembourg, married and started teaching art at the Luxembourg Summer Academy and the Lycée Nic Biver in Dudelange. At the same time, from 1982 onwards he gave evening classes at the Lycée Technique des Arts et Métiers in Luxembourg City. That same year his first son was born, the second in 1984. Michels stopped working as a teacher in 1988 and started his career as a freelance painter, graphic artist and sculptor. Occasionally he worked in other media, such as ceramics and tapestries. The subsequent deaths of his wife and parents between 1996 and 1999 affected both his personal life and his artistic practice. During the last years of his own life he lived and worked in Provence.
The signs, which take the form of stylized arrows, wheels, squares or animal heads, among other things, form fundamental elements in Michels' work since 1987. In addition to the other abstract elements, the artist executed these figurative signs in a graphic, expressive way. According to Michels, the symbols carry meaning. In addition, the silhouettes of people are a frequently recurring element. Michels is interested in people in their natural and urban environment and in their behavior therein.