My work comes out of my own experiences: from growing up in 90’s Detroit, to tattooing in Brazil and Los Angeles, to my fulltime commitment as an artist in the Bay Area. I paint life, black life, intimate moments, often between people of the same sex. Capturing a time, a certain place at a certain time, reflecting my experiences. 

The people in these canvases might go unnoticed by others—from two women relaxing on the coral-pink steps of a house, to two men sitting quietly, one resting his head in the other’s lap. Intentionally androgynous, they are presented in poses that suggest close relationships: men with men, women with women, in powerful, positive representations of an unapologetic freedom. The places in which these figures are set are abstracted settings, slightly tropical, in pastel hues accentuated with black and a rich, dark brown. Pastels help to set a mood or state of mind. 

Rather than drawing a composition first, I work directly with a brush. Body language and proportions, I block out relationships quickly with color and form, thinking about where I want the painting to go (though the work itself soon dictates what kind of story is being told). Many layers build up as I develop the image, working  with acrylic and enamel paint—applying it, scraping it off and repainting until the whole coheres, in a kaleidoscope of different narratives. 

In a way, my process is like arriving in a foreign city: you don’t know exactly where you are going, but if you stop and listen to what’s happening around you and allow yourself to follow your instincts, you will get to your destination. If you had a map and followed it exactly, you would completely miss what that city--or the painting-- had to offer you.

(b.1985) Ian Micheal began painting full time again in 2017 after a thirteen year hiatus. In the 1990s, the Detroit of his childhood was in a state of near collapse: houses in his neighborhood were falling apart, even though families still lived in them. He remembers going to the Detroit Institute of Art on a fifth grade field trip and asking himself why all the people in the paintings there were mostly white, rather than representing the world he knew.

This experience—as well as being Biracial gave him a desire to show what should be normal: just being, living completely free of any judgement-- led him towards the exploration of his current subject matter. His paintings of black couples often suggest deep affection, telling the stories of same sex relationships with humor and sympathy, but with a poetic indirectness that allows for multiple coexisting stories and interpretations.

Micheal is mostly self-taught. His parents were both very supportive, but after a year of art school, he went to work as a tattoo artist from 2004 to 2017, continuing to develop his work and ideas. He has painted fulltime since then.