ABOUT STEVE MURAKISHI

“I am writing from a perspective that is more about looking back, than looking forward. As a young artist, I was really influenced by Andy Warhol. I even made an unsuccessful pilgrimage to Warhol’s studio, the “Factory". Through Andy I learned that the artist's identity could be anyone and could speak to any point of view.  Combine Pop Arts fluidity using everyday objects, that could spring from any source. Pop Art operated as a disruptive force during a time of fractious political upheaval and social turmoil.

This is a very strange pairing, but Andy Warhol and Emily Dickinson gave me inspiration and consciousness to seek a better dialogue. Emily Dickinson wrote in a spare, compressed style, yet rich in tones and vivid in imagery.  Dickinson’s idiosyncratic use of punctuation and capitalization creates a different voice between author and reader. She treats all things - rocks, lily pads or days of the week, the same. Kind of like Pop Art's attraction to the ubiquitous.

My ship sails under the flags of IRONY and PARADOX. I feel like my work operates best with the viewer going through a sequence of self realization, recognition, and assessment to find some degree of truth. 

New truth.”

—Steve Murakishi

Steve Murakishi Resume

Professional

2020 - Present, Member
Shepherd Maudsleigh Studio, West Newton, MA

2020 - Present, Member
Boston Printmakers, Boston, MA

2009, Review Guest Critic
Massachusetts College of Art & Design  - Boston, MA

2003 - Present, Independent Artist/Curator - Boston, MA

1982 - 2002, Head of Print/Media Department
Cranbrook Academy of Art - Bloomfield Hills, MI

1990, Instructor
Michigan State University - East Lansing, MI

1984, Instructor
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI

1981, Instructor
Toledo Museum of Art School - Toledo, OH

Education

1981, M.F.A Printmaking, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI

1979, M.A. Printmaking, Central Michigan University - Mt. Pleasant, MI

1972, B.F.A Sculpture, Michigan State University - East Lansing, MI

Grants

2002, Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs
Names Project, in partnership with Cranbrook Academy of Arts & Pontiac Public Schools

1989, National Endowment for the Arts
Visual Artists Fellowship Grant - Works on Paper

1988, Arts Midwest
NEA Regional Visual Arts Fellowship

1987, Michigan Council for the Arts
Individual Artist Grant

1984, Michigan Council for the Arts
Individual Artist Grant 1 & 2 Person

Exhibitions

2000 - 2001, "Double Flame"Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI

1996,  "Clear Gravy" GMI Institute, Flint, MI

1993,  "The CULT of Aesthetics"Merwin Gallery, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL

1993, "The ART of Production"
Fine Arts Gallery, Mott Community College, Flint, MI

1991, "Fella-ship" - Hugh Merrill, Steve MurakishiLeedy-Voulkos Gallery, Kansas City, MO

1989, "Hard Ball"
San Antonio Art Institute, San Antonio, TXMoreau Gallery, Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN

1986,  "Abrasion of Moments"
Buckham Fine Art Project, Flint, MI

1986, "Contemporaries III"
Ball State University Art Museum, Muncie, IN

1986, "Art for Americans"
Cantor / Lemberg Gallery, Birmingham, MI

1985, "Men on Base"
Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum - Bloomfield Hills, MI

1983, "The Underground River"
Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum - Bloomfield Hills, MI

Curatorial, Selected

2002, "Walk on Water" - Powell’s City of Books, Portland OR

2001, "Ponte Futuro" - Univ. of GA, Cortona, Italy. Co-curated with Sergio Soave

2000 - 2001, "Fabula; Consumer Media" - Cranbrook Museum of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. Co-curated with Irene Hoffman

Panels & Presentations

2008, "Planet Jawbone"
Southern Graphics Council Conference, Richmond, VA

2001, "Not There: Tenacious Absence"
College Art Association Conference, New York, NY

2001, "Whoop Ass or Whup Ass; Our Ambiguous Conflict”
Crossing Boundaries, Portland, OR

1999, "Post-Lingua: the Interraciality of Tongues", Panel chair
College Art Association Conference - Los Angeles, CA

1999, "America Dreams in Colors"
College Art Association Conference - Toronto, ON

1999, “Life After Death”Southern Graphics Conference - Athens, OH

1999, “RE-VISION”Mid-America Print Conference - Cincinnati, OH

1999, “Action League Now!”
Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH

1996, “Gnarly Futility”
Southern Graphics Conference, Morgantown, WV

1995, "Swoosh, The Mark of Modernism"
Southern Graphics Conference - Knoxville, TN

1994,  "Prince”
Mid-America Print Council Conference , Indiana University - South Bend, IN

1993, "The Teasing of Empowerment: Big Hair & Trompe L'oeil"
Southern Graphics Council Conference - Baltimore, MD

1991, "The Love Connection" Panel chair
Southern Graphics Council Conference - Kansas City, MO

Selected Writings

1990, "Betwixt" - Fabula;
consumer media, Cranbrook Art Museum

1990, "Morphability Inn America"The New Art Examiner, February

1993, "Mo' Colors, Mo' Better"Critical Impressions - Florida State Univ. Gallery and Museum

1993, "Art is Unnecessary"
Long News, Short Century Issue

Lectures

Cal Arts - Valencia, CA • Tyler School of Art, Temple University • Pacific Northwest College of Ar • School of the Art Institute of Chicago - Chicago, IL • University of Massachusetts - Amherst, MA • Florida State University - Tallahassee, FL • University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, MN • Illinois Wesleyan University - Bloomington, IL • Rice University - Houston, TX • The Glassell School of Art - Houston, TX • University of Washington - Seattle, WA • University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI • Michigan State University - East Lansing, MI • Kansas City Art Institute - Kansas City, MO
• Cleveland Institute of Art - Cleveland, OH • Cornish College of Art - Seattle, WA • Pacific Northwest College of Art - Portland, OR • Western Michigan University - Kalamazoo, MI • Oxbow - Saugatuck, MI • Georgia Museum of Art - Athens, GA • Hartford Art School - Hartford, CT • Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, IL • Rockford College - Rockford, IL • Saint Mary's College - South Bend, IN • San Antonio Art Institute - San Antonio, TX • UCLA - Los Angeles, CA • New Mexico State University -Las Cruces, NM • University of Arizona - Tucson, AZ • Ball State University - Muncie, IN • Atlanta College of Art - Atlanta, GA • Georgia State University - Atlanta, GA • Lamar Dodd School of Art, UGA - Athens, GA • University of W. VA - Morgantown, WVA • Univ. of Maryland @ Baltimore County • College of Charleston - Charleston, SC

Public Collections

Brooklyn Museum - Brooklyn, NY

Franklin Furnace - New York, NY

Detroit Institute of Art - Detroit, MI

Philadelphia Museum of Art - Philadelphia, PA

Illinois State University Galleries - Normal, IL • Florida A&M University - Tallahassee, FL

Tulane University - New Orleans, LA

University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics - Iowa City, IA

Florida State University - Tallahassee, FL

The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum - Rutgers, NJ

Dallas Public Library - Dallas, TX

Detroit Public Library - Detroit, MI

Newark Public Library - Newark, NJ

Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University - Athens, OH

University of Wisconsin @ Milwaukee - Milwaukee, WI

University of California @ Riverside - Riverside, CA

Syracuse University - Syracuse, NY

New York Public Library - New York, NY

Nelson-Atkins Museum - Kansas City, MO

College Art Gallery, SUNY @ New Paltz - New Paltz, NY

Mint Museum - Charlotte, NC

Virginia Museum of Fine Art - Richmond, VA

Newport Harbor Museum of Art - Newport Beach, CA

Wesleyan University Museum of Art - Middletown, CT

Ball State University Art Museum - Muncie, IN

Michigan State University - East Lansing, MI

City of Palo Alto - Palo Alto, CA

Muskegon Museum of Art - Muskegon, MI

Gonzaga University - Spokane, WA

Spencer Museum of Art, Univ. of Kansas - Lawrence, KS

University of Iowa Museum of Art - Iowa City, IA

Downey Museum of Art - Downey, CA

Galleries of Claremont Colleges - Claremont, CA

Artrain of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI

California State University -Long Beach, CA

The Picker Art Gallery - Colgate University, Hamilton, NY

Greater Lafayette Museum of Art -Lafayette, IN

The Print Club of Albany - Albany, NY

Western Michigan University - Kalamazoo, MI

Printmaking Workshop - New York, NY

Honolulu Academy of the Arts - Honolulu, HA

Archer M. Huntington Gallery, Univ. of Texas - Austin, TX

Davenport Municipal Art Gallery - Davenport, IA

Art Gallery of Nova Scotia -Nova Scotia, Halifax, Canada

University of Pennsylvania -Philadelphia, PA

Cranbrook Academy of Art - Bloomfield Hills, MI

selected Group Exhibition

2003-2004, "Newer Genres: 20 Years of the Rutgers Archives for Printmaking"Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, NJ

2001, "Crosscurrents” Pyramid Atlantic, University of Maryland, Maryland

1999, "Postopia"Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA

1999, "Fabled Impressions”
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA

1997, "True Crime" - co-curated w/Critical Art EnsembleCranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI

1997, "re-cycling Ophelia"Site Installation - Cranbrook - Bloomfield Hills, MI

1997, "A Place In Between"
Steelhead Gallery - South Bend, IN

1997, "Changing Media”
Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA

1997, "Impressions: Contemporary Asian American Prints”
Brandywine Workshop, Center for the Visual Arts, Philadelphia, PA

1997, "Pervasive Impression, Contemporary Political Prints”University of Texas @ Arlington

1997, "Soothsayer", Traveling print exhibitionChadron State College, Chadron, NH

1995, "Polemical Prints"Center Galleries, Detroit, MI

1994, "Cranbrook Collects"Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI

"Made in Detroit"Center Galleries, Center for Studies, Detroit, MI

1993, "The French have a Word for it"Matrix Gallery, Chicago, IL

1992, "Murder as Phenomena"SF CAMERAWORK, San Francisco, CA - catalog

1992, "University of Michigan Alumni Exhibition"Slusser Art Gallery, School of Art, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI - Catalog

1992, "A Question of Purity" The Hoffman Gallery
Oregon School of Arts & Crafts - Portland, OR

1991, "L' Amour Fou"The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada

1990, "9 + 1"Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI

1990, "Engines of Perception"
Slusser Art Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

1989, "Assembled Object"Michigan Council for the Arts Gallery, Detroit, MI

1988, "Color Print USA"Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

1987,  "Cranbrook Contemporary"Museum of Contemporary Art - Cacas, Venezuela

1987, “Michigan Biennial"Kresge Art Gallery, Michigan State University - East Lansing, MI

1987, "What if....."Lill Street Gallery, Chicago, IL

1986,  "Cranbrook Contemporary"Museum of Art - Sao Paulo, BrazilPalacio des Artes - Belo Horizante, BrazilCosta Pinto Museum - Salvador, BrazilMuseum of Modern Art - Rio de Janerio, BrazilNational Museum of Fine Arts - Buenos Aires, ArgentinaNational Museum of Fine Arts - Santiago, Chile

AWARDS

2008, Teaching Excellence in Printmaking
Command Print, Southern Graphics Council ConferenceSouthern Virginia Commonwealth University

“Steve Murakishi has worked as an artist, curator, writer/lecturer, teacher, and was the Head of the Print Media Department, at Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1981 - 2002. He currently resides in Boston and works as an independent artist and curator.

The edges of Murakishi's works are in the cultural, political and sometimes common identities of our contemporary milieu. These works cut deeply into the elliptical path of social complexities, cultural differences and individual identities.”