Michael Arrigo

Professor, First Year Studies
Coordinator, School of Art Graduate Program

MFA, Ohio State University, Painting, 1990
BFA, Ohio State University, Painting and Drawing, 1988

Michael Arrigo's personal website

Teaching Specialization: video, installation art, painting

Courses Taught
ART 1020 Design Studio
ART 1030 Drawing Studio
ART 1120 Media Studio
ARTS 2210 Introduction to Painting
ARTS 3050 
ARTS 4000 Special Topics in Art
ARTS 6050
ART 6930

Areas of Research/Artistic Focus
Most of my recent work begins as simple interactions with my family. I preserve some aspect of these interactions as photos, video or audio snippets and display them in ways that expose the meaning and strangeness immanent in commonplace objects and activities. As an artist, I think of myself as a “tinkerer.” I go into the studio and take ideas, language, electronics - everything - apart to see how it works. I attempt to put these bits and pieces back together in ways that expose underlying structures and unexpected tensions in the fabric of the everyday. I am increasingly interested in making work that reveals, rather than conceals, my messy process of experimentation, in the hope that viewers will enter into the spirit of playfulness and shared discovery.

Recent Accomplishments
Participation in many regional and national juried and invitational exhibitions, including the Hoyt National, Profiles, Randolph St. Gallery, Chicago, IL.
Received G.C.A.C. Individual Artist's Fellowship and painting awards from The Columbus Museum of Art and The Toledo Museum of Art.
Formerly served for two years as director of Young Artists at Work, a nationally recognized arts outreach program for young adults.

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Faculty member at BGSU since 1999