M. Robinson

M. Robinson is the collaborative artwork of Michael Robinson Holmes and Mary Ann Crew. Michael grew up in Glidden, Iowa and began drawing and painting at a very young age. Inspired by color theory and furniture design, Michael studied interior architecture at Kansas State University. While at Kansas State, he was introduced to the rendering styles of Mike Lin, which largely influenced his later artwork style. In 1990, he took an internship with the world-renowned interior design staff of Leo A. Daly, where he was taught invaluable lessons of the proper use of color & textures.

After graduating in 1992, Michael took a design position with a bank in Des Moines, Iowa. Although his job fostered the engineering side of his degree, he was missing an outlet for expressing the color and creative side of his abilities. He began drawing with pastels and his artwork career was born. He was noticed by a local gallery and worked with James Navarro; it was an opportunity to include texture in his pieces. With James’ assistance and guidance, he began his first acrylic paintings, which evolved into Michael’s other body of work, under the name of Michael Holmes. Along the way, Michael was developing an abstract line of work, utilizing the same technique, but with abstract images. In the spring of 2014, Michael was inspired to add two steps to the process for his art, calling this process M. Robinson.