FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ARTS ILLIANA TO HOST MULTI-MEDIA ARTIST MICHAEL MARISI ORNSTEIN FOR LIVE PERFORMANCE OF “JAIL HOUSE BALLADS”
AND STREET ART PROJECT TO BENEFIT ARTS EDUCATION INITIATIVE
Contact: Sherri Wright, Arts Illiana Regional Services
812-235-5007 or sherri@artsilliana.org
Multi-media artist and actor Michael Marisi Ornstein will be traveling to Terre Haute on November 6, 2015 to help celebrate
First Friday with a performance art presentation of “Jail House Ballads” at 7:30 pm in the Arts Illiana Art Gallery, 23 North Sixth
Street in Terre Haute.
"Jail House Ballads" is a 4x16 ft. oil painting on canvas by Ornstein, comprised of 16 portraits with original handwritten text,
scrawled directly onto the canvas, representing the inner thoughts of each of the 16 portraits of people who have all been
through the same Jail House through the years. It is currently on exhibit in the Arts Illiana Art Gallery and can be viewed
Mondays through Saturdays from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
The painting itself is a multi-media storytelling experience. It’s a mode of work that the artist has developed over a period of
some 30 years of creative work, encompassing visual art, performance, filmmaking, and original writing. He calls his storytelling
paintings "Hand Painted Radio”, as the paintings merge all of these different disciplines into one cohesive stream of pure
Storytelling.
A “Hand Painted Radio” painting presents itself as invitation for the viewer to spend a bit of time exploring the images and the
handwritten voices of the people encountered. It is an interactive experience, bringing to mind story paintings on cave walls.
Even that Michael mixes most of his paints from raw pigment reflects this idea of the very old meeting the very new.
Michael’s previous Hand Painted Radios have been made up of a series of paintings. What’s unique about “Jail House Ballads” is
that all of the story’s “characters” are drawn together on the same canvas into a flowing stream, like a novel or a film.
In past exhibitions, Michael has printed the text and posted it next to the paintings, or, as far back as 2006, pre-recorded the
text and linked audio files to viewer’s mobile devices through the use of QR Codes.
He began working this way in NYC during the early 80s by performing the painted stories live, as theater. So, in Terre Haute,
Michael will get back to live performance, with 16 local actors performing the piece as theater.
Ornstein has acted on stage for 25 years, having appeared in the original cast of the World Premiere of “Angels in America,”
and a long stream of new plays in NYC and around the country. Among his film and television work are “Sons of Anarchy,”
“Mob City,” “Law & Order,” “Homicide,” “Third Watch,” and “Seinfeld.” He has also made his own independent films.
Michael’s paintings encompass many forms, materials and sizes, ranging from 4x4" to 30x5 ft. oils on plastic that are meant to
be backlit, a 50x25 ft. fully functional sailboat sail, works on metal, glass, found wood, canvas, linen, Dacron, and anything else
that properly holds paint. He has an ongoing project called “Street Art for Charity”, where he mounts original paintings to trees
and gives them away for free, asking whomever takes them to make a donation to St. Jude’s Children's Hospital. When in Terre
Haute, Michael will be donating several pieces of his original paintings during First Friday toward a “Street Art” event here with
donations going toward Arts Illiana’s Arts Education Initiative. This initiative is providing funds for arts education projects that
provide special arts programs, materials, and instruction to both youth and adults in the Wabash Valley. The initiative has
funded projects in Vigo, Vermillion, and Putnam Counties thus far in 2015.
The “Jail House Ballads” event is free and open the public. Also on display in Arts Illiana’s newly renovated Art Gallery is a
juried exhibition of Indiana and Illinois artists that runs through November 25. For more information call Arts Illiana at 812-2355007.
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