迈克尔·卡根 Michael Kagan | 一笔一画 Brushstroke by Brushstroke
What do you see in the above picture? Does it look like a bunch of random brushstrokes appearing on the canvas of an abstract artist? Or does it seem to be the mixture of meaningless pixels and glitches on a broken computer screen? Well, this happens when you are looking too close to Michael Kagan’s paintings.
你觉得上图像什么？是不是像某个抽象艺术家在他的画布上随手乱画上几笔？亦或是类似坏了的电脑屏幕上才会出现的像素和故障？当你近距离欣赏迈克尔·卡根（Michael Kagan）的油画时，就会发生这种情况。
Now consider the following painting.
现在再来看看下面这张画。
We Leave as We Came (2018) by Michael Kagan. Oil and linen. 72 * 71 cm. Juxtapoz©
《如到来般离去》
Isn’t it an astronaut with a spacesuit and a large helmet? From afar, the astronaut suddenly appears on the painting. The two pictures above are exactly the same except that the first one only shows a part of the whole picture, a zoomed in version.
这不正是穿着太空服和头盔的宇航员吗？只要从远处看，宇航员便会“跃然纸上”。上面的两张图片其实完全相同，除了第一张只显示了整个图片的一部分，如同放大版。
This is how Michael Kagan paints. Michael Kagan is a New York-based artist whose paintings are heroic explorations of the balance between abstract and representational painting. His work depicts intensity in the light resulting in almost a cinematic quality.
这便是卡根的绘画方式。卡根是一位纽约艺术家，他的绘画注重对抽象与具象之间平衡的探索，他的作品描绘了光线的强度，使得画作几乎有着电影的质量和效果。
Born in 1980 in Virginia Beach, he attended George Washington University where he majored in Painting and Art History. Upon graduation, he moved to New York City to attend the New York Academy of Art to further study painting and received his MFA. He was awarded the prestigious post-graduate fellowship at the New York Academy of Art, which allowed Michael to focus on many paintings for his first show in New York City.
迈克尔·卡根于1980年生于弗吉尼亚比克（Virginia Beac），曾就读于乔治华盛顿大学，主修绘画与艺术史。毕业后，他移居纽约，前往纽约艺术学院进修绘画，并获得了艺术硕士学位。此外，他还获得了纽约艺术学院享有声望的研究生奖学金，这使迈克尔得以在纽约市的首场个人展览中展出众多画作。
One Day This Will All Be Yours (2014) by Michael Kagan. Oil and linen. 60 * 80 inches. ThisisColossal©
《有朝一日这些都是你们的》
With a palette of blues, blacks, whites, and dashes of red, Michael Kagan paints with brushstrokes that are sharp and angular, resembling elongated pixels. Working with oil on linen, as well as exploring screen printing and painting onto photographic prints, Kagan’s work has captured the attention of high-profile collectors including Yusaku Maezawa and Nike CEO, Mark Parker.
卡根在画作中主要运用蓝色、黑色和白色，以及红色虚线，画出的笔触既清晰又有棱角，看起来仿佛“被拉长的”像素。卡根通常将油画作于亚麻画布上，同时也使用丝网印刷和摄影等方式创作。他的作品深得像是前泽友作和耐克首席执行官马克·帕克等知名收藏家的喜爱。
Trust the Universe
相信宇宙
In an interview with Juxtapoz Magazine, Michael Kagan revealed “My wife once came into the studio and saw me obsessing about the painting and taking photos on my phone and going through to see what I can fix, and she was like, ‘Just trust the universe, just trust the universe, everything has a flow, you’ve got to trust the universe.’ And then I named the painting Trust The Universe.”
在接受《Juxtapoz》杂志采访时，卡根透露：“我的妻子有一次来工作室，看到我正沉迷于一幅画，并用手机拍照，想看看哪里能再修改，她便对我说，‘你要相信宇宙，只要相信宇宙，一切都有自然的流动，你必须相信宇宙。’于是我最终将这幅画命名为《相信宇宙》”。
Trust the Universe (2016) by Michael Kagan. Oil and linen. 72 * 96 inches. Michael Kagan©
《相信宇宙》
As Michael Kagan said, he really likes space, which is also reflected in his art pieces – he paints astronauts and rockets and relating themes all over places. At almost eight meters wide and two meters high, Apollo 15 is the artist’s largest painting to date and the work also meets the historic weight of its subject: humankind on the moon.
正如卡根所说的那样，他的确很喜欢宇宙，这在他的艺术作品中也得到了体现——他的画作充斥着诸如宇航员和火箭这样和宇宙相关的主题。例如《阿波罗15号》，宽约八米，高近两米，是卡根迄今为止所作最大的一幅画，巨幅的作品同时也展现出了该主题在历史上举足轻重的地位：人类登月。
Apollo 15 (2015) by Michael Kagan. Oil and linen. 78 * 300 inches (approximately 198 * 762 cm). Michael Kagan©
《阿波罗15号》
But why space? Getting obsessed with astronauts makes him more like a scientist than an artist. This could be traced back to his childhood:
但卡根为什么钟爱宇宙呢？沉迷宇航员的他比起艺术家来说倒更像是科学家了。这一切还需要追溯到他的童年：
“One day in 2006, I decided I wanted to try to do an astronaut painting, mainly because I knew a lot about it from growing up.” As Michael Kagan also mentioned in the interview with Juxtapoz Magazine, “...my father was really into NASA and its history... and we went to Space Camp together. He had telescopes and would show me all that. So, when I made the paintings, the astronaut things, I knew a lot about it.”
“ 2006年的某一天，我决定尝试作一副关于宇航员的画，这主要是因为我从小就对它了解很多。”卡根在接受《Juttapoz》杂志采访时如此说道：“……我父亲真的很喜欢NASA及其历史……我们还一起去过太空营。他当时有望远镜，我们经常一起观星。因此，当我创作宇航员的画作时，我对此非常了解。”
The Balance between Representational and Abstract
具象与抽象间的平衡
“...one of my favorite painters is Tuymans, and I love how his works are just quick reads, just like a snapshot.” Michael Kagan further details his affinity towards the paintings appearing both representational and abstract, “... at a crowded opening, when you're just kind of peaking over people to see the paintings, you can immediately get what it is. You don't have to walk up close. You'll just get the image. And I like that my paintings can be like that.”
“ ......我最喜欢的画家之一是图伊曼斯（Tuymans），观众可以迅速读出他的画作是什么，就像快照一样。”卡根解释了为什么他喜欢画一些既具像又抽象的作品，“……在拥挤的首展仪式上，即便你只是越过人群，匆匆一瞥这些画作，你也可以立即明白这是一幅什么画。不必走近你也可以看清楚，我就喜欢我的画画成这种感觉。”
I Was There When It Happened (2018). Oil and linen. 96 * 72 inches. Virginia Moca.org©
《曾几何时》
“I like that they are kind of these static quick snapshots, but then you can really get in and see a flurry of strokes that, if cut into a little three-by-three-inch section, would be like a little abstract painting. That's the way I'm building them up when I paint them. I'm just making these little abstract paintings in little three or four-inch sections, and then it all comes together.”
“我喜欢它们像是某种静态快照一般。但如果将它们分割成三英寸乘三英寸的小部分，你就会真正看到这一连串的笔触，这时候，看起来就好像是一幅抽象画了。这就是我在绘画时构建笔触的方式。我只是在三到四英寸的小空间中一笔一笔画出这些小小的抽象画，然后当它们全部融合在一起之后，整幅画就成了。”
And just like what he said to Avant Arte (a community that spreads artwork worldwide):
正如他对Avant Arte（向全球传播艺术的社区）所说的那样：
“Each brushstroke is a moment of time that I am locking down.”
“每一笔触均是我定格下来的那一瞬的时间。”
- Michael Kagan 迈克尔·卡根
Michael Kagan painting. Copyright from Avant Arte
卡根正在作画
For more information on the artist, please click here
更多关于艺术家的信息，请点击这里
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