Michael Tangen

Working primarily in ink, watercolor, and acrylic, Michael Tangen moves between expressionist figure studies, surrealist automatic drawing, and abstraction. Each mode circles the same question from a different angle — one rooted in his sustained engagement with Stoic philosophy: what is the nature of our impressions, how did we arrive at them, and are they actually worthy of our assent? It is a question the ancient philosophers took seriously as the fulcrum between a life examined and a life on autopilot, and one that Tangen finds equally urgent inside the studio. Ink has become his defining medium — a choice that carries its own philosophy. Unlike more forgiving materials, ink demands commitment. A gesture laid down in dip pen cannot be undone, only worked with, worked through, or worked around. He finds something honest in that constraint: the way a bold, careless stroke mirrors how quickly and sometimes carelessly we arrive at our verdicts; the way dense, intricate texture captures how complex life actually is beneath the stories we tell ourselves about it.