Michael Berryhill creates paintings that defy simple categorization in his basement studio located in the Catskills region of New York. The artist, known for his electric color palette of pinks, oranges, blues, and yellows, works under fluorescent tube lighting that makes his canvases appear both trippy and passionate. His home, a preserved 1950s structure with plywood floors and pink-tiled bathrooms, serves as a form of resistance against mid-century conformity through its creative repurposing. Berryhill shares the space with his wife, musician Eleanor Friedberger, who has converted parts of the house into a music studio and performance area. The word "GUILLOTINE" recently appeared in charcoal on his studio wall, reflecting his political engagement following recent elections and his desire to channel revolutionary energy into his creative practice.
Born in El Paso, Texas, in 1972, Berryhill discovered art through unexpected channels during his childhood. He would see the large sculptures of Chicano artist Luis Jiménez downtown but didn't initially connect them to a larger art world. Instead, he found himself drawn to popular illustrators like Norman Rockwell and Frederick Remington. At age five, Star Wars sparked his imagination with its gritty, realistic fantasy world of dented spaceships. This fascination led him to create comic books and zines with friends, establishing drawing as his primary means of navigating the world. Despite his parents' advice to pursue a design degree instead of a fine arts education, Berryhill enrolled in the BFA program at the University of Texas at Austin in 1994, where he found an affordable and vibrant artistic community alongside peers like Erik Parker and Daniel Dove.
The competitive studio culture at UT Austin proved contagious, with painter Peter Saul serving as a major influence through his anti-authoritarian stance and permission-giving approach to creativity. Saul taught students to value humor, weirdness, and unexpected elements in art. A pivotal moment came when art historian Leo Steinberg delivered a lecture that changed Berryhill's understanding of canonical works. Steinberg's analysis of Michelangelo's Pietà and Madonna and Child paintings revealed how strangely radical these familiar pieces actually were, such as Mary's oversized shoulders needed to support Christ's body. This three-level approach—becoming interested, taking apart, and letting the work haunt you—showed Berryhill that great art could be strange from the beginning and become normalized over time.
After working in advertising for ten years to achieve financial stability, Berryhill moved to New York and became obsessed with visiting every gallery exhibition. This period of intense looking eventually forced him to choose between observation and creation, leading him to Columbia University's MFA program, which he completed in 2009. At Columbia, mentor Charline von Heyl introduced him to the concept that the highest level of artmaking occurs when an artist finishes a piece and wonders, "How did I make that thing?" This state of genuine surprise and discovery, von Heyl taught, becomes transferable to the viewer, creating authentic engagement that transcends technical skill or intellectual concepts.
Berryhill's process begins with simple doodles containing foreground and background elements that he transfers to linen canvas. Using a dry brush technique, he draws into the weave of the fabric, treating the material itself as a form of resistance. He scrapes away paint as much as he adds it, creating a tension between forming and resisting imagery. While some paintings clearly depict lions, birds, figures, or tabletops, others retreat into pure abstraction. His parrot series emerged organically from this process—the colorful birds provided an excuse for vibrant palettes while also serving as a metaphor for the artist as mimic, attempting to recreate greatness through observation and repetition. This approach allows viewers to experience the work on multiple levels, remembering either specific forms or simply a "color feeling."
The artist's high-keyed palette draws inspiration from the Pre-Raphaelites, who embraced newly available pigments to create fantastical, jewel-like works that glowed with dreamlike intensity. Berryhill aims for a similar seduction, creating paintings that transform under different lighting conditions and can haunt viewers even in dim galleries. He works on multiple canvases simultaneously for approximately nine months, allowing paintings to "infect" each other when placed side by side. This method helps him avoid privileging legibility or accuracy over direct experience. As he states, "You can't think your way through a painting. You can only act, mark, or feel your way through." The guillotine reference on his wall represents his commitment to making art for the society he dreams of—one populated by artists and sensitive people rather than fascists or billionaires who profit from suffering.
