Michael Marling de Cuellar

What is Your Background with UNG?

In the 1980’s I earned a B.F.A. from the University of West Florida in Printmaking and Sculpture and an M.F.A. from Florida State University in Printmaking and Painting. At the time, the country was in the midst of a recession and there were few teaching positions available. For every teaching position there sixty to three hundred job applicants. I moved to North Georgia in 1988 and began cold calling local universities and colleges seeking opportunities. It was at this time that I met Bob Owens, the chairman of the Art Department at North Georgia College. He didn’t have a position for me however, he did offer me my first one-person exhibition in Georgia after graduate school.

I continued to keep in touch with him over the years, still being unemployed as an artist. In 1996 I enrolled in a graduate program at North Georgia College & State University for a Masters in Education, Bob Owens was my supervising professor. Upon graduation in 1988 I immediately found employment with the Forsyth County school system as a high school art teacher. This would be my first paying art gig and I was ecstatic to be employed as an artist.

In 2001 Hank Margeson suggested that I apply for the Printmaking position that was available at NGCSU and I was hired as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor where I stayed until 2021 retiring as a Full Professor. My time spent at the University of North Georgia was a very rewarding experience, spending time with some of the most creative, engaging, and bright minds, helping to facilitate their goals and objectives to becoming problem solving artist. It’s exciting to see where they have all gone in the world and what endeavors they have come to be involved with.

When Did you First Become Interested in Art?

I began my art journey as a child. I played with fire, wood, stone and sand. I came to have a love of drawing. Art entertained me, soothed me and kept me out of trouble. I was always told “you can’t make a living doing art”, but found that to be an untruth from people that knew nothing about art.

Who are Your Biggest Influences?

The first image that influenced me was “Tahitian Landscape” by Paul Gauguin. This image with those bright vibrant colors transported me to another place as a child and perhaps led to my love of tropical locales and wanderlust.

Today I am influenced by many artist and movements, Araki, Clemente, Warhol, Basquiat, Matisse, Bonnard, Schnabel, R. B. Kitaj, Koons, Bansky, Swoon, all the Pop artist, German Expressionist, Arte Provera, and Impressionist. I have a love of art history and I believe as an artist you need to see and know as much as possible to inform your own work.

How Have You Developed Your Career?

At the University of North Georgia, I had the opportunity to be highly productive as an artist creating multiple bodies of work in both painting and printmaking mediums. I exhibited those works nationally and internationally in juried exhibitions and commercial gallery settings. Those bodies of work tended to be abstraction that related to a grid sequence and figurative work related to erotica and influenced by Japanese Shunga.

What does your work aim to say?

My art is not necessarily created for others but mainly for myself, autobiographical entertainment, the same reason as it was in my youth. I derive pleasure from the creative act. My art is about satisfying the overwhelming urge to create, with no thought to current artworld trends, collectors, or message.

What advice would you give to students about seeking opportunities as an artist?

My advice to young artist is to never lose sight of your dream, draw, photograph, film, sculpt, every day for two minutes, twenty minutes or two hours, again draw or create every day. You will have to make sacrifices for your art, it may be a relationship, financial, or emotional. In today’s world you have to be serious and want art pretty badly to pursue a career in art, a want greater than anything else you desire.

Art is a jealous mistress. There are a multitude of opportunities you will find in the art world, in galleries, museums, on every street corner, everything produced must be designed from the watch on your wrist, the listening device in your ear, the clothes on your back, to the packaging, logo and concept. Tell that to the next person that ask you “well what are you going to do with that art degree”?

Artist are critical thinkers, risk takers, entrepreneurs, and problem solvers and that is what you learn in the Department of Visual Art at the University of North Georgia. I wish you all the continued success in your journey, your adventure in the creative process, and I have full confidence that you can surpass my artistic dreams and goals!