Mihail: Rocketships

Opening Reception on Saturday, April 30, 2–5pm

Municipal Bonds is honored to present Rocketships, a mixed media exhibition by the late Bulgarian-born American artist Mihail (1929–2021). Inspired by the iconic moment of the early 1980s when NASA launched its first space shuttle, Mihail created a body of work themed on space travel. His series of architectonic drawings, dream-like paintings, atmospheric watercolors, and model sculptures from the 1980s and 90s celebrates the era of nascent space exploration. During a time of quantum leaps in science and the acceleration of humanity’s hope in outer space discovery, Mihail’s work captured the transcendent imagination and optimism around what he simply called “rocketships.”

Mihail’s approach removed pictorial rules and formalities, as he created his own stylistic mix of modernism and futurism in a range of mediums and topical inquiry. His rocketship drawings on yellow pad paper—playfully rendered as if for formal research—calculate costs of materials, strategically consider wind direction, and analyze launch dynamics. In counterpoint, his watercolors are more poetic abstractions than witty machinations, composed of an outpouring of emotionally-colored water and energetic marks.

Often painted then overpainted, Mihail’s oil on canvas space-scapes are equal measure color experience and surrealist motifs, featuring ubiquitous soft pink and sometimes a shadow figure seated and observant (human, god, alien?). His rocket sculptures combine rudimentary elements of metal and wood—handheld in size, whimsical in construction, the mighty becomes childlike. And his large charcoal and pastel drawings convey monumental revelry in scale and motion, where power is expressed through the physicality of gesture and bold line work.

The French word “Desirée” appears occasionally in Mihail’s work—like the ceremonious dedication of a ship’s name—apt for the ambitions of space, the desire to know the cosmic unknown. Whether stationed at launchpads or lofted into space, Rocketships represents the ethos of space adventure: action and expansion, emotion and rigor, mystery and wonderment. Made decades ago, the series exemplifies ideas and aspirations as relevant today as then, limitless curiosity and belief in the power of humankind’s reach—Mihail’s vision for the future.

municipalbonds.art