Michael’s painting captures the dynamism of the natural world; the mounting tension between the majesty of nature and its evanescent beauty. Some of his work, in its painstaking detail, reflects the outlook and time-honored ideals of traditional schools of landscape painting. Other canvases convey an almost melancholy urgency, as if the artist were hurrying to capture a fleeting beauty. These, with their thick oils, fast strokes and heightened colors, have the kind of vibrancy, intensity and insistence usually associated with impressionism.

Whether small and intimate (9” x 12”), much larger (36” x 72”), or in between, Kinsley brings this uniquely powerful and poetic perspective to his art. The passion and immediacy one feels even among his most imposing scenes reflect his own deeply felt connection to the land he paints and on whose behalf he has worked for thirty-six years. Despite their apparent serenity and immutability, the viewer often detects the feeling, as the artist clearly does, that these beloved scenes are in jeopardy.

Kinsley lives in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, which is often the subject of his work, and travels widely, chronicling scenes from all over North America, and Scandinavia, the UK, and Australia.

Kinsley often shows at Toklat Gallery in Basalt, Colorado (www.toklatgallery.com). He has shown at the Carbondale Council’s Gallery, Aspen Artists Cooperative, Woody Creek Art Studio, Aspen Chapel, Carbondale Artworks, Upper Edge Gallery, Redstone Art Center, and the Leadville Mining Museum. At the 1994 Glenwood Springs Art Festival, he won first place landscape-professional.