From INTERMISSION
MAGAZINE St. Louis Edition December 1993
Article An eye for imperfection: Inside Michael Draga
by Michael O'Brian
If you
find yourself standing in one ot the St. Louis hot spots for art,
looking at a photograph of a beautiful woman, chances are you're
viewing the work of Michael Draga. Over the last ten years
Draga has captured women from across the St. Louis area in a style
one might call "pure seductiveness."
Draga has been featured on Take
Two, (April '93), a local information show, as well as mentioned
by various local publications including The Riverfront Times own
Alexandra Bellos, art critic. The attention is well warrented
considering the quality of work, as well as the quantity produced in
recent years. Michael has an eye for beauty and an uncanny
ability to enhance that version with his multimedia style.
It was no surprise that Draga's art would
come to mainstream. In junior highschool he was awarded a
scholarship to the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis.
From 1970 - 72 he continued his studies at Meramec Community Collefe
and then graduated from Webster College. Now more than 20
years later Michael works full time with the U.S. Postal Service
while maintaining
a full time studio.
"I only like to show a couple times a
year," Draga says. "That way people don't get
tired of seeing my work." It is difficult to Imagine
people tiring of his work. Mostly done in black and white,
more recently expanding into color prints. Michael photographs
women solo or in couples seductively draped in fabrics, or sometimes
nude. His models are captured showing an innocence
and purity of youth, though their ages range up into the early
fifties. Once the photos are taken, Michael goes back with a
brush and enhances shadows or elaborates secondary transposed images
which he has incorporated into the work. "My card reads
artist/photographer, which is how I always want to be remembered -
artist first," Draga asserts. "Painting,
photography, and art in
general, for me is a compulsion, like eating, breathing, or
excreting, it is some- thing I have to do."
"I am enamored by the female
form." That explains the passion that radiates from
Draga's work. "It is like falling love with every woman I
photograph." His answer for how he finds the time to do
his art "I sleep less." Draga claims that he doesn't
have the same inspiration when photographing men. That
statement is hard to believe looking at one of some 30 photographs
on display in south city's Rene's , a photo showing several
tired firemen who have fought a burning building to defeat.
The emotion captured in the work is staggering.
Though the brush strokes normally come
after the photograph, Draga has a recent series of prints where he
painted from the bodies on the models first, that, for some reason,
are trapped in his south city apartment. That particular
collection is an overpowering expression of exploding colors with
the typically passionate composition of which Draga has become a
master.
"I love to show people how beautiful
they really are and how I see them in their own beauty,"
Michael contends. "A unique nose or protruding chin or
chisseled jaw are features which catch my eye when I approach a
potential model. I see the beauty of imprefection. I
love to break stereotypes and I see beauty in all." That
emotion is evident when one sees the work Draga has
completed in photographs of women who are probably not viewed as
model material for society's standards. The beauty he sees is
obvious in the work he produces. Though Michael approaches
women he wishes to photograph, many women approach him wanting to be
glamorized. In one such instance, a 50 year old woman, already
a grandmother, asked Michael to do a nude series of
herself. "She was very proud of the work,"
Michael notes. "For me, it was one of the most facinating
experiences ever, it broke all stereotypes."
Asked about early influences in art, Draga
responds "I like the work of Picasso and Edward Hopper, as
painters, though I feel they had little bearing on the work I do now.
Primarily I am self taught. I consider myself a student of
life feeding off others energy. My peers have more influence
on me than do other more renowned artists." Michael's
work is on display at Renee's, the
Oasis Coffee House in Webster Groves, at Wabash Triangle Cafe at
6155 Delmar, and at the Venice Cafe at Lemp and Pestallozi.
Does Michael have a favorite piece? "When people ask what
my favorit piece is, I always respond 'The last one I've finished.'
" He has a passion for his work which has given us a
passion for Michael Draga.
Draga doesn't photograph weddings or
parties. "I refuse to prostitute myself for art,"
he proclaims. "I won't quit my job, so I don't have to do
this for money. When in the studio, I can devote my entire
being to my art."
www.dragastudios.com |
