Michael K. Paxton a well-established Chicago fine artist who is also a sixth generation West Virginian with a career that now spans fifty years. His awards include a grant from the Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Inc., New York; Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Visual Art Award and two Professional Development Grants; Fellowships with both Air le Parc, Project and Research Center, Pampelonne, France and Jentel Artist Residency Program, Banner, Wyoming; a Marshall University Alumni Award of Distinction; Individual Artist Program Grant, DCASE, Chicago, IL; six Professional Development Grants from Columbia College, Chicago, IL; two CAAP Grants, Chicago, IL; Open Studio Residency, Department of Cultural Affairs, Chicago, IL and a Purchase Prize, fom the Chicago Federation of Labor, Chicago, IL.
Selected major one-person exhibitions include Captive Coal, Retrospective, Sharp Museum, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL; Interpolations, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL; Raw Reckoning, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago; Pillars of Dust, Heuser Art Center, Bradley University, Peoria, IL; Interpolated, The Art Gallery, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL; Bone Deep, Shircliff Gallery of Art, Vincennes University, IN; Unleashing Instinct, Linda Matney Gallery, Williamsburg, VA; From Enoch to Strange Creek, featured at Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL, Miami University Museum of Art, Oxford, OH, Laura Mesaros Gallery, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV and Alpestrine, Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago, IL.
The documentary film, Work at Hand, Michael K. Paxton, has been broadcast on WVPBS; featured in screenings at the CAA Annual Conference, Chicago, IL; Raleigh Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Peninsula Fine Art Center, Newport News, VA; Wealthy Theater, Grand Rapids, MI; Chicago Filmmakers, Chicago, IL. and was Official Selection of the 17th Annual Great Lakes International Film Festival.
Group exhibitions include Art Rosenbaum and Friends, Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Art, Spring, TX; Mediating Between the Senses, MU Gallery, Chicago, IL; Short Term Infinity, BOCCARRA ART, Miami, FL; Currents Art Fair, Richmond, VA; Appalachian Futures, WVU Library, Morgantown, WV; Obsession, Improvisation, Collaboration, Governors State University, University Park, IL; “On Big Drawings”, Averill and Bernard Leviton A&D Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago; “Between Rock and an Art Place’, The University of Georgia Lamar School of Art Gallery, Athens, GA; New Country, Morehead State University, KY; Moments of Grace, Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI and A Sense of Place, The Art Center, Highland Park, IL and Noyes Cultural Art Center, Evanston, IL.
A few of his major commissions are with the 7th District Federal Reserve Bank, Chicago; Christel De Haan Collection, Zionsville, IN; Jensen Metal, Inc. in Racine, WI, and a wall-size drawing installed into the Kirkland and Ellis collection in San Francisco. With a long list of critical reviews and features about his work, he has been published in New American Paintings; Line Work; Knack Magazine and Art and Soul, highlighting fifty of the most noted West Virginians in the Arts.
With an MFA in Drawing and Painting from The University of Georgia, 1979 and B.A. in Art from Marshall University, 1975; he retired from the Faculty of Columbia College Chicago in Art and Design Departments in 2021.