At a time of world crisis, painting is undergoing a rebirth. Michael Manning’s Contradictions reveals what the injection of new life in his medium means for the 21st century. Developing from the foundation of his 2004 Long Live the King: The Gilgamesh Series, Manning takes a bold leap into the present through a transparent convergence of the literary and visual. _Contradictions) makes a radical departure from antiquity even as it circles back to the timeless themes embedded in the Babylonian epic of the first hero’s journey.

As he takes his symbolic language drenched with vivid color to a new level of multi-layered narrative, Manning satirizes the oppressive hierarchy of patriarchal religions and Cartesian thought. In a cinematic progression of movement from one canvas to another, the painter embraces the contradiction of linear and cyclical story telling while resurrecting the authentic face of the feminine in order to integrate gender equality into his brushstrokes. This alchemical process absorbs the patriarchal shadow and balances the warring dualism of objective/subjective into a new mode of painting in which the opposites converge into a creation myth for our present millennium.

In vivid color and idiosyncratic style incorporating the zigzag trajectory of 20th century painting, Manning enthralls his audience as participants in a hero’s journey of liberation. In personal joyriding mirroring that of the 20th century artist driven to overthrow the establishment in order to launch a new movement, Manning absorbs feminism to rejoice in the holism of painting reflecting the search for a unifying theory in science.

My new work Contradictions is a series of paintings exploring issues of morality, mortality, and injustice. At the core of the images is the idea of contradiction and the role it plays in what we believe to be right and wrong.

Throughout my life I have been attracted to the stories I have encountered in mythology and religion, and this has been expressed in much of my work. At an early age I questioned the meaning and purpose behind these stories and the messages they were imparting.

Initially I rejected them, but through exploring them more deeply in my work and in my life, I came to truly appreciate the diversity of how one can choose to live one’s life. In addition, I developed a very clear, open sense of how people should treat one another.

My paintings began to use stories within mythology, along with my perspective of right and wrong, as a framework for addressing current issues faced by society. While my use of established mythology has been vital, my current work has established a more immediate relevance.

I’ve been able to deal more directly with these issues of morality, mortality, and injustice. With the use of traditional mythology as a foundation, I see the new work as a kind of new mythology—-new stories, commenting on current issues. These stories have been constructed from my individual point of view, but with universal significance and meaning.