Michael Godfrey is a representational landscape artist whose work hangs in many private and corporate collections. Born in Germany in l958 and raised in North Carolina, he earned a BFA in Fine Arts and began his painting career in oils and watercolors. He spends hours field sketching and photographing, preparing for a well thought out painting. 

Typically, he starts a major work using small oil studies done on location. These field studies provide color accuracy and photographs provide special details. Godfrey composes his paintings from on site sketches in the field and photographic references. In studio, work progresses in successive layers of paint and light is orchestrated to create a painting that appeals to his internal sense of order. 

A landscape artist has to have knowledge of many disciplines (geology, chemistry, physics, architecture), to understand the world in which they are trying to create. An artist must observe with the idea that what is observed must be interpreted and distilled. For a landscape artist, it is just as important what is not included in a work as what is eventually laid down.

Michael Godfrey describes his style as a combination of George Inness and Impressionism with the moods of an Albert Bierstadt painting. "I paint," he says "to help people notice the special moments that happen every day, especially the drama when light first splashes across a scene." From different perspectives and different times of day, Godfrey works to capture and interpret the varying moods of light.