Brooklyn-based artist Michael Kagan’s work is full of contradictions. His oil paintings highlight the tension between the snapshot-like quality of frozen instants of explosive motion — such as a rocket launch — and the slow process of painting. There is also an element of the unexpected in the close examination of his works; as a viewer approaches what appears to be a representational painting, the surface dissolves into an abstract composition of aggressive brushstrokes. Kagan believes a painting is perfect “when it can fall apart or it can come back together depending on how you read the image and also how close you are.”

With Factum Arte, Kagan began exploring sculpture as a medium in 2021.