WHAT MICHAEL NEWMAN KNOWS: DISPATCH FROM A VETERAN EXPLORER OF THE LANGUAGE OF ABSTRACTION

THE TAIWAN-BASED, AMERICAN ARTIST HAS REFINED A PAINTING METHOD COMBINING EAST ASIAN INK-WASH TECHNIQUES AND THE SPIRIT OF MODERNIST ABSTRACTION

by Edward M. Gómez

It’s now more than four years since the American artist Michael Newman moved back to Taiwan in 2020, shortly before the global outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to that move, he had lived and worked in the Seattle area for many years.

Michael Newman, Untitled, 2023, watercolor on Taiwanese-made Puli paper, 24.41 x 24.41 inches (62 x 62 centimeters). Photo courtesy of the artist

I’ve known Newman since the late 1980s, when I first met him in Japan. By that time, he had lived in the Osaka region for nearly 18 years and was already well on the way in his development of a mode of painting that buoyantly brought together aspects of East Asian ink-wash painting and the spirit of abstract expressionism.