Michael Golden

In his paintings of birds and other animals, Michael Golden challenges the definition of the “naturalist artist” by embracing the artificial in subject and style, the implausible in composition and background, and the spiritual in content. The qualities of energetic presence, beauty, and personal meanings are central to Golden’s practice. 

Golden attended the University of Notre Dame as an undergraduate business major and, later, Washington University for medical school: he dropped out to study art. After a few semesters in studio art at The University of Texas at Austin, Golden completed his MFA in Printmaking and Drawing from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

Houston’s Rudolph Projects/Artscan Gallery organized a 20-year retrospective in 2016 which subsequently traveled to the Beverly Arts Center in Chicago. Golden’s work has been included in “The Abstract Impulse” at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and in exhibitions at Artists’ Space and The Painting Center in New York City, and in multiple exhibition spaces in Dallas, Toronto, Boston, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and other cities. Golden’s work is in several museum, corporate, and private collections. He has received two Individual Artist Grants from the Houston Arts Alliance. He has served on the Artist Board at DiverseWorks Art Space, several HAA grant panels, and volunteered at Lawndale Art Center and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Golden’s studio is at Spring Street Studios in the Arts District of Houston. He taught at Houston Community College - Central for 25 years, serving as chair of several visual arts departments for a decade. For more than 20 years, Golden managed the Art Gallery at HCC-Central, and he curated the TANK Project Space for several years. He has curated over 20 exhibitions at Houston area galleries, and juried many others.