Michael Banks

Michael Banks was born in 1972 to a single mother in a housing project in northern Alabama. As a child, Banks loved to draw and paint on anything he could find. People wondered how such a young child seemed to have such a strong artistic flair.

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His mother both encouraged him to make art and warned of the difficulties. He created in obscurity until 1992 when his mother died. For five years, Banks fell into a deep depression and could not paint. Finally, he remembered the hope and encouragement his mother gave him and started to paint again. The grief soon lifted.

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Michael says that he paints because it keeps him alive, he must paint in order to survive.