Biography

Michael Kagan’s oil-based paintings are eclectic – heavy brush strokes in sharp primary colours do not let the viewer get away easily. The way Kagan paints attracts attention. His game is not so much one of perspective as it is of immersion. Like through a whirling wind of colours one is hauled into the canvas, nearly hypnotically. To stand further back from the image is an attempt to understand it, while the following step towards it only testifies to an unexplainable magic. With his impasto technique he layers thick but often short blobs of oil paint next to each other, sometimes on top of each other. After vaguely outlining shapes from NASA photographs, his process becomes more abstract. Geometrical shapes become different colour fields that are never completely separate from each other. Michael Kagan’s paintings unfold their power by turning something that has primarily had its place in realistic photographs into an emotionally responsive image.