Meet the Artist - Michael Flahault

We are thrilled to have Kingston artist, Michael Flahault, kick off our “Soaring Through Summer” event. Enjoy an array of unique portraits, landscapes and, yes, some works related to planes.
Michael has kindly offered MERA a wonderful painting to be raffled on August 8 at 6 pm , the evening of our one-day festival Soaring Through Summer.
About the Artist
Growing up in Paris and London, Michael was immersed in world-class art, receiving instruction from accomplished school art teachers and additional training through extracurricular classes arranged by his parents. While his early career was rooted in traditional realism, his work has since expanded to explore contemporary figurative and conceptual themes, drawing on psychology, relationships, symbolism, and the search for meaning.
As a member of the American Society of Aviation Artists (ASAA), he studied under artists including Keith Ferris, whose work is held by the Smithsonian Institution, and received multiple ASAA awards. In the early 2000s, the ASAA secured him gallery representation through Art for Life in New Jersey and New York, where limited-edition giclée prints of his watercolours were exhibited and sold.
In 2003 and 2004, the Canada Aviation Museum commissioned four watercolours for its aircraft displays. Under the patronage of General Maurice Baril, then Chief of the Defence Staff, Michael authored the proposal that became the Canadian Forces Artists Program (CFAP/Operation Apollo), through which artists are sponsored to document the Canadian Armed Forces worldwide. He later served as the artist representative on the program’s Selection Advisory Committee alongside representatives from the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian War Museum, the Canada Council for the Arts, Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Senate.
His work has been commissioned or collected by the Canada Aviation Museum, the Canadian Forces Museum of Aerospace Defence, Bell Helicopter, Execair (Innotech), SimuFlite, CAE, the Canadian Business Aircraft Association, the O’Keefe family, Guy Lafleur, and private collectors as far away as Australia.
Alongside his painting practice, Michael has spent many years as a software developer specializing in historically accurate flight simulation. Michael holds degrees in International Relations from Concordia and McGill Universities and also studied at Carleton and Kuwait Universities. His academic background continues to inform an artistic practice that seeks to unite technical craftsmanship with the exploration of ideas, inviting viewers to discover meaning through observation rather than explanation.