Michael Venezia formed in the minimalist conceptual New York environments of the late 1960s early 1970s with artists such as Robert Ryman, Dan Flavin and Sol LeWitt. While the latter led their research more toward sculpture and installation, Venezia has always been focused on painting. 

He began his production by making vertically developed works and he was among the first artists to work with a spray gun on canvas, introducing the randomness of spray painting into a dimension of calculated composition. Over time his interest shifted from the center to the margins. 

During a visit to his trusted framer in Umbria, near his residence, the artist saw an oak stump on the floor and decided to purchase it. When he reached the studio, he painted only one long side of it. Thus the base of the work thins out. The paint migrates from the wide canvas to the squared piece of wood, mindful of the frame. For the artist, the wooden block represents a new surface that narrows the field of vision. 

The American artist makes his first entry into the gallery with works belonging to the so-called Block Painting series. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the wooden fragments are not sculptures, because the painted area is only one and the eye tends to focus on it without wandering in search of depth, given by the material. By composing the works with three elements, the artist explicitly refers to the religious triptychs of the Gothic period, especially those made by Giotto and Cimabue. 

His works are not based on a predefined plan but on randomness. The wooden blocks are often painted at first and then stored waiting to be picked up by the artist afterwards, even years later. Venezia is driven by intuition to bring the pieces together. The work is defined when the artist chooses the composition. The viewer sees moments of life and research dialoguing in a continuity that seems programmed, but indeed each part is the origin or evolution of the other.