Michael Hall is an interdisciplinary artist working between painting and video to emphasis empathy and complexity in situations that are often polarizing and oversimplified. Born in San Diego and moving around the world as part of a military family, Hall received his MFA from Mills College and a BFA from California College of the Arts & Crafts. He is the recipient of a 2010 Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Award and a 2008 MFA Fellowship at the Headlands Center for the Arts. His artist residencies include the forthcoming Joan Mitchell Foundation Residency and the Montalvo Arts Center in 2015. His upcoming exhibitions include group exhibitions at the San Francisco Arts Commission and The Richmond Arts Center. His work has been shown nationally and included in exhibitions at Southern Exposure, The Headlands Center for the Arts, Root Division, the Pacific Film Archive, Patricia Sweetow Gallery and Waterloo Center for the Arts. Hall’s paintings have been included in 100 Artists of the West Coast II, New American Painting and in the Outlook Magazine in China. His ongoing participatory obstacle course has operated at both the Montalvo Arts Center and the Headlands Center for the Arts. In 2013 he completed his first public art piece in Napa, CA. A committed and innovative educator, Hall has been a staff member of Creative Growth for 13 years. 10 years ago he founded the Digital Arts and Video Production Workshop Program and he continues as the lead instructor for the program working with artists with disabilities to create a wide range of video and digitally based works. In 2014, he was awarded an Alameda Country Arts Leadership Award for his work at Creative Growth. Additionally, Hall has taught at Mills College, Pont Aven School for Contemporary Art and the University of California at Berkeley.