Michael Reafsnyder (b. 1969, Orange, CA) received his Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art at Chapman University in Orange, CA in 1992 and his Master of Fine Arts at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena in 1996, where he studied under Mike Kelley, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe and Lita Albuquerque.
Selected solo exhibitions include Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; "We Ate the House," Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe, New York, NY; "Sunday Best," Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Culver City, CA; "Paintings," Galeria Marta Cervera, Madrid; Uplands Gallery, Melbourne; "Paintings," Blum and Poe, Los Angeles; "Fresh," W.C.C.A, Singapore; "Delight," Marty Walker Gallery, Dallas, TX; "Sweetness," Rebecca Ibel Gallery, Columbus, Ohio; "Put it There: New Paintings and Ceramics," Western Project, Culver City, CA; and "More," Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV.
Select Group Exhibitions include "Do You Think it Needs a Cloud?," Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY;"Belief in Giants," Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; "From the Collection," North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND; "Step into Liquid," curated by Dave Hickey, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA; "Recent Acquisitions," Barrick Museum, Las Vegas, NV; "Los Angeles Ceramic Museum of Art," ACME, Los Angeles, CA; "Fresh Paint," Galerie Eugene Lendl, Graz, Austria; "Black Dragon Society," Black Dragon Society, Los Angeles, CA; "Keramik," Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, CA; "New Work; Abstract Painting," Todd Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, amongst others.
His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV; North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR; Weisman Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN, amongst others.
His work has been the subject of reviews in numerous publications including Artforum; Artnews; Art Issues; Los Angeles Times; Art Ltd.; Flash Art Italy; Artweek; Bomb; El Mundo; Modern Painters; ABC; San Francisco Chronicle; New American Painting; LA Weekly, amongst others. Dave Hickey, David Pagel, Michelle Grabner, Charles Palermo and Michael Schreyach have written essays on Reafsnyder’s work.
In 2022, Reafsnyder received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.