Michael Kempson has been involved in the visual arts for over 40 years, primarily as an artist, academic, curator and custom printer as the Director of Cicada Press. He has had 34 solo and over 250 group exhibitions both in Australia and internationally, curated 89 exhibitions, worked with over 220 artists to make fine art original prints and his artwork is represented in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Bangkok, Thailand; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and many Australian state and regional galleries. This experience, while not specifically relevant to bonsai, has been of some benefit in what friends and family describe as a serious engagement bordering on an obsession with which he began dabbling about 20 years ago. Kempson started taking lessons in 2016 at the School of Bonsai, where he now teaches and has been a member of BSA since 2018. While engaging with a diverse collection there is an emerging interest in all varieties of the Juniperus genus, with numerous examples to keep him busy. The presentation/demonstration in June at BSA will be his very first effort and will focus on the lessons learnt with Junipers over the last 2 growing seasons, offering practical insights garnered via the experience of working with raw stock through to trees that have progressed into the bonsai development phase.

See more of Michael's work at michaelkempson.com