Michael Kagan

Michael Kagan (b. 1980, Virginia Beach) is a Brooklyn-based artist recognized for his dynamic oil paintings that capture the spirit of exploration — from mountaineers to astronauts. With bold, textured brushwork, Kagan conveys both the physical and emotional limits of human ambition. He describes a painting as perfect “when it can fall apart or come back together depending on how you read it.”

Kagan holds a BA from The George Washington University and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art, where he also completed a postgraduate fellowship in 2005. His projects include commissions for The Smithsonian, collaborations with Pharrell Williams, and album artwork for White Lies’ Big TV, winner of the 2013 Art Vinyl Award.

His work is held in major collections worldwide, including the Hall Collection (USA), Maezawa Collection (Japan), and Fidelity Investments (USA). Recent highlights include a solo exhibition at Virginia MOCA (2019–2020) and a 2019 monograph published by ARTBOOK | DAP.