A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others. Print

Michael Wooten was born on May 9, 1974 in Hannover, Germany (though to this day he still wants to call it West Germany). He first started drawing when he was in the fourth grade. He and his friends started to trace cartoons out of the Sunday newspapers. His friends got bored with it after a couple of days, but Michael wanted to see if he could draw the cartoons without tracing them. He couldn't. But he persisted and eventually he was able to draw all of his Sunday favorites. It was during this time that Michael started to learn as much about art as he could and from that day until college, he took as many art classes as possible. Drawing, painting, sculpture, design, whatever class he could get into, it didn't matter as long as it was art. In high school, he took every art class available except for jewelry making and watercolors. It was in high school that he learned anatomy and life drawing and moved from cartoons to portraiture. Currently Michael divides his time between painting and raising his two sons. His paintings tackle the diverse issues like the perception of beauty in a modern society, civil uprising like those of the Arab Spring and though out Europe and South America, and the painters personal views on transcendentalism and history. His current series revolves around the American Civil War and the poetry of Walt Whitman juxtaposed with images from riots in Greece and the Middle East.