Michael K. Paxton a well-established Chicago fine artist who is also a sixth generation West Virginian from the coalfields of deepest Appalachia, with a career that now spans more than forty-eight years. In his series, Bone Deep, Paxton plumbs his Appalachian roots. Beginning with slides of coal miners’ black lungs, he translates them first to sketches, then larger drawings, then immense canvases where the dark source images transform into richly colored compositions, bordering on abstract expressionism, which seduce the eye while raising awareness of a people and culture underrepresented in contemporary art.