Mike Kroll

My work begins with looking closely. Whether I am working in photography, mosaic, or mixed media, I am drawn to the structures and relationships that give ordinary things presence: light moving through trees, the geometry of a bridge, the broken rhythm of a surface, the tension between natural and constructed forms. Tradition gives the work its foundation. I value materials, craft, and the discipline of sustained observation, but I am equally interested in pushing familiar forms toward something less expected. Much of my work develops through this tension between order and disruption, permanence and change. Across different media, the method remains remarkably consistent: look, question, make, then look again. I am less interested in explaining what the viewer should see than in making work that rewards a second look. Attention is where the work begins. What survives that attention becomes the art.