Michael Deyermond | the mad chapel
November 29 – January 17, 2026
Opening Reception: December 6, 4–6pm
Artist Talk: January 17, 2025, 11am
Michael Deyermond is the quintessential tragic poet who came to the West because he thought California could save him. A writer, a bookstore owner with a cult following and a multi-media visual artist, Deyermond's artwork references Robinson Jeffers, the Beat generation, William Everson, all the great poets that dug and mined the Golden State. His new exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, the mad chapel, equates his soul-searching with the divine, a rare level of profound beatitude that poet Gregory Corso declared was attributable only to Kerouac and Shelley.
This exhibition features paintings, sculptural carvings into walnut, and text pressed into brass, one of them in the shape of a tombstone with the words "on the occasion of my death as an unknown artist." the mad chapel also includes a thick black walnut book hand-carved with the words, "I came so close to god it was art." Like Kerouac, he struggles with demons, like Quixote he tilts at windmills, like many poets there is doubt and fear, but there is always everlasting hope.
It all began with a simple delusional dream
I thought california could save me
To be saved
to become some uniquely special creature
And ad a single chapter to the lore of california
Living a singular life in the arts
The reality was the harder part
And the dream was tested
And our hero failed
I failed again and again
In madness
In self destruction
In suffering
In temptation
But to absolutely manifest the dream
I believe
You have to outlive
the madness
The temptation
The suffering
And the failure
Not abandon the delusion you started
And forge a path of spiritual existence
As a californian
in a blessed life
in the arts
In the mad chapel
This is my testament and celebration of the dream and its horrific responsibilities
– Michael Deyermond