Raoul Middleman must be Baltimore's biggest artistic champion since John Waters - wait, Middleman's been at it longer, painting his native city and its colorful denizens in a homegrown Raoul Middleman steps into the University of Maryland University College's art gallery, starts chatting up curator Brian Young, and, looking around, stops talking mid-sentence. I sat in a sea of students for Middleman's MICA lecture on Thursday, February 5th, in the center of his new exhibition, Selfies, which features over fifty years of self-portraits Raoul Middleman's self-portraits are a witnessing and a waiting.
Through them he explores, presents, and preserves aspects of himself. In Walt Whitman's famous poem excerpted in this essay, he muses that the self contains multitudes.
With his hundreds of self-portraits Middleman bring this concept to life To call him prolific would be a major understatement It will come as little surprise to anyone acquainted with the paintings of Raoul Middleman that earlier in his career he had writing aspirations, too β and not just aspirations, for they were acted upon in raucous short stories that often delved into the steamier side of Baltimore It's a November mid-afternoon in Baltimore, and the remaining daylight is making a run for it.
If he's to paint a picture today, Middleman will have to work fast, but that's okay with him. He likes getting his hands in gear before his head has time to intervene Dear Raoul, I was profoundly impressed by your show. I think it was one of two shows this season that I like very much, the other being the Marin exhibition at Marlborough.
I envy your paintings, I wish I could paint like that Raoul Middleman must be Baltimore's biggest artistic champion since John Waters - wait, Middleman's been at it longer, painting his native city and its colorful denizens in a homegrown expressionist manner for upwards of half a century. Middleman's manner finds the middle ground between Oskar Kokoschka and Alice Neel, so you can imagine how he does faces and bodies and even clothing, how uncomfortable his sitters sit but how comfortable they seem in their skin.
