← BACK TO PUBLICATIONS

SELF HELP

By Michael Welsh

SMP No. 20, 2013 | 57 pages, perfect-bound in collaboration with Publication Studio

SELF HELP by Michael Welsh represents the intersection of three discreet interests of the artist: abstraction in painting; self-help advice authored by Oprah Winfrey; and magic alchemy. For this publication, Welsh has appropriated advertisements, photo spreads and editorials from O Magazine, a periodical produced by Winfrey, and applied layers of paint to translate these popular media pieces into the language of abstract painting. Accompanying the images are original poems by Welsh—part manifesto, part existential crisis—that use appropriated text from Modern Alchemy and Occult Psychology by D. Lawrence Meredith and inspirational, life-affirming quotes from Oprah Winfrey.

Michael Welsh lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. This is his third project with Social Malpractice Publishing.