Rising Stars: Meet Michael Gat of Denver

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Gat.

Hi Michael , we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve always been a creative person but I would say my Fine Art journey began in high school when I was given the option to take electives and I chose an acting class. After one day of acting class, I realized that I was more interested in the drawing in my notebook then paying attention to that class I was in. The next day I signed up for Drawing 101 and I continued to sign up for every Fine Art elective that was offered in my school. My junior year I was extremely interested in photography and by senior year I was the first student to skip one of the Photography electives and went straight into A.P. photography. I was the only student who was registered in an A.P. Photography Class and A.P. 2D Drawing. Excelling in both I chose to attend The School Of Visual Arts in NYC as a photography major. There I was able to really learn what it meant to be an artist and be mentored by some of the leading talent in photography. After college I worked in high end fashion, which at the time was a lot of fun but at the same time it really burned me out from the act of photography. I was still in my free time drawing quite a bit and had also made friends with a lot of prominent Street Art / Graffiti artists. Running around with this group of people I came up with a quick ” throw up” robot which I have since doodled thousands of these little robots. Although I was deep in the ” street art scene” and culture of this medium I had put my artistic endeavors on the back burner in order to pursue a career in fashion photography. The burn out from this job lead me to moving to Colorado where I had a little trouble finding my place with photography so my path took a detour to many different occupations ranging from Graphic Design, Marketing, Politics, and lastly I found a position as a Gallery Director at a gallery in the heart of the Santa Fe Arts District. This job allowed me to find my muse again to create and also connect with the ever growing art scene here in Denver. I was drawing again, making water color paintings and ink drawings. At that time I was creating watercolor paintings of flowers because I thought that art like that was what people wanted to see from me. I had my first solo show at RemainReal Fine Art titled ” XOXO Flora” and one of the few paintings that sold and received a lot of praise was one of my robots that had a flower for a head and was crying. One of my mentors in college told me that ” you should make scary art” meaning make art that you can emotionally connect to because most likely people will connect more with that then what I think they will connect to. In the last 3 years I have started to really take my Fine Art endeavors seriously, switched mediums to acrylic and started to really just paint what I connected with most. Robots, cartoon like images, and also incorporating themes that I connected with. Currently I have been consistently showing at galleries around Denver, trying to create a following on social media and have plans to make my rounds in the festival and art markets in 2026. Finally putting my creative endeavors on the forefront because it is truly my calling in this world.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I feel like the road has had many detours and obstacles that really tried to obscure it. One of the biggest struggles I had was just finding my artistic voice. I spent a lot of time creating art for other people instead of creating art for myself. Which at the end of the day did not bring me any sort of success but made me actually not want to create as much as I do now.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My artwork likes to mix nostalgia with innocence. I like to create acrylic paintings with big bold linework mimicking old timey cartoon aesthetics ( 1930’s rubber hose animation) with ideas that dive into mental health and struggles. I love to incorporate this style into images of movies, art classics, cartoons, and pop culture that I have connected with.

I am most proud currently of being able to slowly make my art career flourish and just create everyday. For a long time I fought this and replaced creativity with meaningless jobs and career paths but had always felt most ” at home” when I was creating.

I think what sets me apart from others would be that I’m extremely prolific. In the last 4 months have created 40 paintings and I am always drawing. One of my photography mentors told me to always shoot and I have translated this into always create. I think this ideology has pushed my art to a new level and I am slowly creating a very large body of work.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Risk taking is learning. Without failing how will you learn? Currently I feel like I am taking a huge risk diving into my Fine Art career as it isn’t necessarily an easy path to take or one that has a road map. I take risks every day with what I’m creating whether it be what color palette I choose or what theme I’d like to delve into.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://robotsandtelevision.myshopify.com/
• Instagram: robotsandtele