For over three decades, Reno-based artist Michael Sarich has inspired viewers, students and colleagues through his steadfast and passionate career dedicated to the investigation of mark-making. Influenced by outsider art, graffiti and tattoo flash, the raw nature of Sarich’s canvases, ceramics and mixed media constructions represents a complex relationship between personal and universal imagery. Swarming with recognizable symbols and popular references, Sarich’s visual narratives depict intricately woven allegories, highly unique, yet familiar in nature. Symbols such as La Virgen de Guadalupe, Mickey Mouse, and the Walmart smiley face collide with images of propellers, fish, birds and skulls. The configuration of prevalent imagery in a highly globalized and aggressively commercialized world alongside renderings of personal interests like fishing, family tokens, and bodily deterioration elicit multiple interpretations.
