"Beyond Duality" is a series that focuses on the notion of perception and the discovery of one's own original face. The paintings depict one unified image split into two seperate realities. These seperate realities compliment each other creating a juxtaposition of two very different thoughts.
Michael LaBua is a self-taught American artist born in Brooklyn, NY in 1986. As an artist, LaBua seeks the directness of his subjects to evoke emotion within his audience. His paintings act as a device to ask questions that delve deep into the caverns of the human psyche.
His work primarily consists of large scale oil paintings which are rendered in a form of detailed realism, typically fashioned within series. Between these series you begin to see the unraveling of his mind. His vast education of world history, culture and philosophy is reflected in series such as “Amnesia” and “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust”, he proposes unique questions of human origins, the passing of time and the afterlife.
While other bodies of work such as “A Semblance” “On Westward” and “In Exile” are littered with allusions to poets and writers such as Charles Bukowski, Arthur Rimbaud, John Steinbeck and David Foster Wallace. These works mirror an inward reflection of the wide range of emotions we confront as humans dealing with issues such as family, trauma, perseverance and the resilience of man in which LaBua believes “such virtues lead one towards humility and nobility.”
His series entitled "Subscription-Based" questions the roots of the systemic growth and formation of ideology, culture, human behavior and social stigmatization. His latest series "Beyond Duality" (2023) is a series that focuses on the notion of perception and the discovery of one's own original face. The paintings depict one unified image split into two separate realities. These separate realities compliment each other, creating a juxtaposition of two very different thoughts.
The culmination of LaBua’s work can be described as a type of case study examining humanity, and its past, present and future, the simple but laboring task of discovering infinite love within all things while always blurring the lines between a form of Poetry and Prophecy.
