Michael Velliquette has used drawing, sculpture, and video to delve into his psyche and daily life. Over the past decade he has recorded himself and his surroundings, and composed environments that reflect his personal journey. Using readily available materials classically associated with craft—paper, plastic, felt-tip markers, tape—he creates all-encompassing, fictional worlds that explore the relationship between the self and the universe at large.
With each project Velliquette crafts a space-specific piece that encourages thoughts about humans and the world around us. To hasten the contemplation of metaphysics he employs a wealth of visual stimulants reminiscent of 1960s psychedelia and more recent rave culture. In his installation The Depth of the Drop (2003), a darkened room was crisscrossed by paper streamers printed with images of the galaxy. Projected on one wall was a video of a storm, while looped on a monitor was footage of a starry-eyed mummy singing sad soul songs. The work sparked thoughts about the afterlife and where we go from here. Like his other work, the piece used dramatic means to distill attention onto the intersection of science, cosmology, philosophy, and religion.
Michael Velliquette was born in 1971 in Sandusky, OH and has lived in San Antonio, TX since receiving his MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2000. Recent solo exhibitions include The Suburban, Chicago, IL (2004) as well as Three Walls (2003), Blue Star Contemporary Art Center (2003) and Cactus Bra Space (2003) in San Antonio, TX. Velliquette’s work has been shown in group exhibitions at Deitch Projects, New York, NY (2003); the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX (2002); and the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Canada (1999).