As the auctioneer, art dealer, curator, and art world legend Simon de Pury has written, “The subjects of Michael Kagan’s spectacular paintings and sculptures are superhumans who brave all obstacles and fears in their obsessive and passionate pursuit of records, speed, excellence, and victory.”
And sure enough, you can look at a Michael Kagan canvas and see grit, determination, and bravery — but beneath the layers of thickly applied paint there is also an undeniable vulnerability. His images of astronauts, for which he has become well known, can be read as symbols of both exploration and isolation.
Kagan's treatment of these subjects complicates their heroic status. Faces are obscured, bodies fragmented by aggressive brushwork, suggesting that beneath the helmeted facade of heroism there may also lie vast reserves of uncertainty and doubt.
Michael Kagan - photography Nir Arieli
As the artist tells us in our interview below, “A lot of my work explores the physical and emotional journey that accompanies people pushing themselves into extreme situations. I’m less interested in astronauts as flawless heroes than as vulnerable human beings inside enormous systems and machinery.”
In Kagan’s astronaut paintings you may also detect an element of nostalgia, a yearning perhaps for an age when space exploration was not the latest flex for billionaire bros, but a genuine unifying moment of global wonder, inspiration, and optimism for the future.
“I want the work to function both instantly and slowly,” Kagan tells Artspace. “Ideally there’s an immediate impact — the silhouette, the scale, the recognizability of the astronaut. Boom, image. But then the longer you stay with the painting, the more the surface opens up physically and emotionally. The brush marks start competing with the image itself. You become aware of the painting as an object, a process, a record of time and decision making. Hopefully the viewer begins entering the painting the same way I entered it while making it.”
Michael Kagan - Higher Love, 2026 - photography Garrett Carroll
His new edition, Higher Love, 2026, with its title loosely based on the lyrics of the Steve Winwood song of the same name (which he urges readers to stream while reading our interview below) is a 17-color silkscreen print with water-based and UV-cured ink on Coventry Rag 335 gsm. It is an edition of 35 measuring 24 x 20 inches and priced $2,500. The edition offers a compelling entry point into Kagan’s practice.
Born in 1980 in Virginia Beach, Kagan received his BA from The George Washington University and MFA from New York Academy of Art, where he also completed a postgraduate fellowship in 2005.
Special projects have included a commission from The Smithsonian, clothing collabs with Pharrell Williams, and album cover artwork for The White Lies album Big TV. He had a solo exhibition at Virginia MOCA, Virginia Beach, VA, USA (2019/2020). Meanwhile, the 2019 publication of the book I Was There When It Happened crystallized a decade of astronaut imagery into a cohesive survey.
Michael Kagan - Higher Love, 2026 - photography Garrett Carroll
Kagan’s work is in the collections of the Hall Collection, Reading, VT, USA; Maezawa Collection, Chiba, Japan; Maki Collection, Tokyo, Japan; Gemini Trust Company, New York, NY, USA; Fidelity Investments Corporate Contemporary Art Collection, Boston, MA, USA; Founders Fund, San Francisco, CA, USA; and Jacob & Co., New York, NY, USA, among others. He has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
Proceeds from the sale of Higher Love, 2026 will benefit the non-profit skilled rehabilitation and training team organization Animal Haven, chosen by Kagan for its work in finding permanent homes for abandoned cats and dogs and ongoing support after adoption. Animal Haven has served the New York Tri-State area since 1967.
On the eve of the edition's release, we asked him a few questions about Higher Love, 2026 and his wider practice.
Michael Kagan with Higher Love, 2026 - photography Nir Arieli
You grew up near a NASA space center. How did that shape your early years? Growing up near NASA made space exploration feel both ordinary and mythical at the same time. It was just part of the atmosphere culturally. As a kid it produced a mixture of awe, curiosity, and fascination with the idea of people willingly pushing themselves into the unknown.
Your astronaut figures often feel both heroic and isolated — what draws you to that tension between the two? I think astronauts occupy a strange place culturally. They represent ambition, exploration, technological progress— almost the best version of human capability — but at the same time they’re completely isolated. That contradiction is really interesting to me. A lot of my work explores the physical and emotional journey that accompanies people pushing themselves into extreme situations. I’m less interested in astronauts as flawless heroes than as vulnerable human beings inside enormous systems and machinery.
Do you think of them as real people, or more as symbols? Both. They usually begin with real historical images, but once I start painting they become more symbolic.
Michael Kagan - Higher Love, 2026 - photography Nir Arieli
Is the isolation inherent in the paintings solely about space, or could it be read as a reflection of life on Earth? Space is probably just the most amplified version of something that already exists on Earth. The paintings are technically about astronauts, but they’re also about distance, pressure, performance, loneliness, ambition — things that feel very contemporary. The helmet and reflective visor are important to me because they transform the figure from a straightforward portrait into something more abstract and iconic. The mreflection collapses multiple spaces together — the astronaut, the landscape, machinery, light — and creates a kind of distortion that feels psychological as much as visual. It separates us from the individual person while also pulling us further into the image.
Is there an element of yourself in the paintings, a self-portrait in disguise perhaps? Probably inevitably. I don’t think of the astronauts literally as self-portraits, but I do think the brushstrokes are. The paintings absorb whatever is happening in my life while I’m making them — good days, bad days, energy, frustration, focus, distraction. Every mark carries some trace of that experience. So even if the image is based on a historical astronaut, the surface of the painting becomes very personal over time. Any body of work eventually becomes autobiographical in some way.
Does nostalgia play a part in the work? There’s definitely nostalgia in the work, but not simply for the past. We’re entering a new era of space exploration, and I think that makes the earlier NASA imagery feel even more romantic and exciting now. Those images still carry a kind of optimism and collective imagination that people respond to instinctively.
What’s also interesting is that over the years I’ve actually become friends with astronauts and people involved with these newer space programs, so the subject matter feels less distant and more human to me now. It’s no longer just mythology or historical imagery — there are real people behind it again.
Michael Kagan - Higher Love, 2026 - photography Garrett Carroll
Has the rise of private companies like SpaceX influenced the way you think about astronauts as cultural figures? The rise of companies like SpaceX changes the mythology around astronauts. They’ve shifted from government heroes into something more technological, corporate, media driven. I think that tension is interesting too.
Your brushwork is expressive yet abstract. How do you decide how much detail to preserve versus dissolve? I want the paintings to function as quick reads at a distance — almost an immediate hit. Boom, image. You recognize the astronaut instantly. But as the viewer gets closer, the brush marks begin to take over, and the image starts to fall apart. That tension between clarity and collapse is important to me. I want the paintings to exist right on the edge between representation and abstraction.
The brushwork and physicality of the paint are also a way for the viewer to enter the painting — to enter the moment itself. If everything becomes too resolved, the image can lose tension. Letting certain areas dissolve forces the viewer to participate a little more — the eye has to complete the image.
Michael Kagan - Higher Love, 2026 (detail) - photography Nir Arieli
How long does each brushstroke take to create, and is there a set process? Are there varying strokes within the overall structure? The marks happen quickly, but they come from a very slow process of looking and adjusting. For me, painting is really about interpreting the reference image through brush marks working together. It’s about pressure from the brush, rhythm, texture, and constant problem solving. Some marks are structural, some atmospheric, some are there almost to interrupt or destabilize the image. I’ve never liked the term ‘pixelated’ because the marks are still very physical and handmade. They’re gestures more than digital units.
What first drew you to this way of working, and how has it changed over time? Originally I was looking for a way to break down photographic imagery without losing its power or immediacy. Painting is really a process. I trust the process completely. You have to get lost in it a little bit. Through the daily practice of painting, the works evolve organically over time. If you force a painting, it usually looks forced. Over the years I’ve become more comfortable allowing the paintings to evolve naturally rather than trying to control every part of the image.
Michael Kagan - Higher Love, 2026 (detail) - photography Garrett Carroll
Possibly dumb question, but what’s your favorite part to paint? Probably the visor reflections. That’s where everything collapses together — the astronaut, the landscape, the machinery, the photographer, history, light. The visor becomes this distorted psychological space rather than just a reflective surface. There’s also almost always a tiny reflection of the astronaut taking the photograph buried in the center of the visor reflection. I like that idea a lot — the viewer becomes that astronaut. I become that astronaut. That’s probably the best place to start entering the painting from.
You studied under Eric Fischl and Jenny Saville, what did you learn from them? Eric Fischl taught me that less is often more in painting — to paint with confidence and trust that certain areas can remain open or unresolved. He was very sensitive to how paint itself can become seductive, how brushstrokes alone can create form, atmosphere, and psychological space. Jenny Saville is a master of color and brushwork. Learning from her probably had the biggest impact on my studio practice and on the way I think about paint itself. She really reinforced the physicality of painting for me — the idea that paint can carry emotion, tension, weight, and vulnerability beyond simply describing an image.
Michael Kagan - Higher Love, 2026 - photography Garrett Carroll
The edition image is based on the photo of Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin, why choose that specific mission? It’s one of the most iconic images in the history of photography. But what I’ve always loved about it is that it’s almost a double portrait. Buried in the center of Aldrin’s visor reflection is the small figure of Neil Armstrong taking the photograph. Some people have even said the best photograph of Armstrong on the moon is actually the reflection of him inside Aldrin’s visor. That layering is really interesting to me psychologically and visually. The image contains both astronauts, the landscape, the camera, the act of looking, and the act of documenting all at once. It already feels like a painting before I even begin working from it.
What response are you hoping to initiate in the viewer? I want the work to function both instantly and slowly. Ideally there’s an immediate impact — the silhouette, the scale, the recognizability of the astronaut. Boom, image. But then the longer you stay with the painting, the more the surface opens up physically and emotionally. The brush marks start competing with the image itself. You become aware of the painting as an object, a process, a record of time and decision making. Hopefully the viewer begins entering the painting the same way I entered it while making it.
Take a closer look at Higher Love, 2026.
