Emergence

Biography
(b. 1986).

Born in Oakland, California, Michael O’Guinn grew up in the East Bay Area. After losing his father at age 3 and being raised by a wonderful mother who was diagnosed with MS around the same time, his childhood and teens years involved coping with grief and anxiety. Finding comfort in drawing, O’Guinn began to experiment artistically with cartoons and loose figure drawing in charcoal. In 2004, he attended USCB in Santa Barbara, CA, where he graduated with a Bachelor's in Law and Society and a minor in Philosophy. Following his undergrad, he received a Master's degree and has worked as a Legal Analyst in Santa Barbara for about 10 years.

O’Guinn drifted from the arts with corporate and grad school demands, but found his way back into creating through self-taught photography and abstracted painting over the last decade. For O’Guinn, the Pacific North West region of the USA has always been a major source of inspiration for him, from its musical influences of Grunge rock to the natural moody greens and misty whites of the evergreen forests. Coupled with the desire to express subjective emotions, inner experiences and spiritual themes, O’Guinn focuses primarily on gestural style in his painting, experimenting with techniques of wide brush strokes to thinly dripped lines. As an emerging artist, Michael O’Guinn has been represented by Kostuik Gallery in Vancouver, BC since mid-2024.