Michael LeVell
Born 1964 in Los Angeles, CA
Tierra del Sol artist since 1989

Michael LeVell was born in 1964 in Los Angeles, CA. He is one of 8 founding artists who launched the Tierra del Sol Foundation’s art studios in 1989, a program that empowers individuals with developmental disabilities through careers in the arts. LeVell is known for his velvety, tactile drawings of landscapes and architectural structures in saturated layers of colored pencil or acrylic paint, as well as his intricate brutalist ceramic sculptures of deconstructed geometric forms. While legally blind, LeVell is a connoisseur of Architectural Digest, using the magazine’s stunning imagery to inform his works. Rendering his subjects in near-perfect perspective, LeVell’s natural ability was apparent from an early age. The artist began drawing in childhood, using his sister’s dollhouse furniture as reference material before finding Architectural Digest, a discovery that quickly became a lifelong devotion.

LeVell closely studies images from Architectural Digest, holding the page up to his eye and scanning each detail incrementally before narrowing our gaze to its most salient lines and forms. Similar to the works of other visually impaired artists, LeVell presents an intuitive spatial awareness that offers the viewer a glimpse into an abstracted articulation of the world around us. LeVell moves easily between works on paper and sculpture. While his two-dimensional works appear soft and fluid, the artist’s ceramic practice recalls Modern brutalist works, offering a multitude of perspectives and angles simultaneously. For over thirty years, LeVell prolifically generated works through his distinct visual vernacular at Tierra del Sol’s studios. While his subject matter remains true to his love for architecture, LeVell’s longstanding practice has undergone numerous evolutions, including the mysterious addition of black, circular shapes that thoughtfully perforate his surfaces. These black circles originally formed along walls of LeVell’s architectural drawings, resembling windows, but this enigmatic visual motif later dominates entire compositions and pushes them toward full patterned abstraction.

Michael LeVell has extensively exhibited in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, San Francisco, and Miami. In 2018, White Columns Gallery in New York presented a solo exhibition of LeVell’s works. He’s been written about in the Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, and NY Magazine, gaining critical acclaim and praise from Jerry Saltz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic. LeVell’s works have been acquired by esteemed private collectors such as Brian Donnelly, Matthew Higgs, Marty & Rebecca Eisenberg, and the JPMorgan Chase Collection, among others.

About Tierra del Sol

As part of the larger Tierra del Sol Foundation, the Tierra del Sol Gallery exhibits work created in our unique and innovative art studios. Over thirty years ago, Tierra del Sol started showing and selling art from their studios through First Street Gallery in Claremont, CA. In 2019, a space dedicated to the artists of Tierra del Sol was opened in Los Angeles with a focus of expanding the gallery’s programming and connecting the foundation’s artists with a global audience. Since then, Tierra del Sol Gallery has debuted artists at the Felix Art Fair, Frieze, and NADA Miami as well as partnered with a dynamic range of organizations, including Undefeated, Amazon, Netflix, and Transformative Arts. Tierra del Sol Gallery has propelled countless artists into the world of contemporary art. All sales go directly to supporting the artists as well as the foundation, which provides studio space, career support, and materials for artists to craft their work.

Tierra del Sol Foundation is a not-for-profit founded in 1971. We champion inclusion and value for all individuals with disabilities through creative pathways to employment, education, and the arts. A strong and vibrant community is one in which all of its members contribute to the strengths and assets for the common good. Tierra’s vision is that all people live productive and personally meaningful lives, regardless of the notion of disability, as neighbors, co-workers, and contributors to the economic, civic, and cultural vitality of the community.

Michael LeVellThe Armory Show, NY

Michael LeVell
The Armory Show, NY