Eastern District presents an exhibition by Michael Alan, Blurred/Reformed/Dissected, a series of drawings, paintings, prints and video.

Dissecting, amplifying, sampling and distorting, Michael Alan explores spaces that walk along the edge of figure and the abstract. These pictures are interpretations of the human body within the world, which is simply an abstraction of our minds. The body is abstract, emotions are abstract. Alan uses his surface as an emotional reader to document these intangible realities. 

Through various layers, media, and techniques, Alan approaches the work as a celebration of the attainable and unexplainable. Each work is disembodied, dislocated, space and anatomy are questioned. Body parts and their “order” are re-imagined, and working through layers, water color, line work, faces, shapes and a army of images, Alan renders perceptible volume in 2-dimensional pieces. Rather than making definitive statements, his pictures rest on the edge of a question and its answer: enigmas.

About the Artist:

For Michael Alan, art is a combination of harmonious opposites, close observation, catharsis, a means of communication and a radical juxtaposition of dimensional elements. He challenges everything: concepts of figure, composition, media and movement, including his own. Exploring the ambiguity of time and history, Alan’s work focuses on crossbreeding and the relationship of destruction and creation.

Alan was born in the summer of 1977, in New York City during blackout. His work has been featured in 6 New York solo shows and over 200 group shows. His work has been discussed in over 200 publications, books and media sources, including the New York Times, NBC’s Today Show, Marie Claire Italia, The New York Post, Fox Channel 5, the Village Voice’s “Best in Show”,Time Out New York, and the New York Press. In addition to his work as a solo artist, Michael is the founder and director of The Living Installation, where he transforms human beings into unique, living art objects that perform beautiful and treacherous acts for an audience of artists and viewers. He is also the founder and director of Drawathon Theater.

He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.