Alan Michael ́s paintings and drawings recall works made by adolescents who fastidiously reproduce images of their idols in pencils and paint on paper. Michael ́s works however draw from a more idiosyncratic canon, framing unlikely succession of figures to create a variety of fantasy groupings.
Michael is interested in the ways in which other industries such as advertising, cinema ans design adapt iconic images freely and unselfconsciously. In his attempts to apply a similarly free approach to his work Michael has composed complex images in different styles and media utilizing figures appropriated from works by an eclectic mixture of twentieth century figurative painters including Balthus, Lucien Freud, Modigliani and Phillip Pearlstein. Such works recall in some way Paul Thek ́s Television Analyzations (1963).

While the “mechanical eyes“ that distort culture fascinated Thek, Michael ́s interest lies in the wider distortion of received ideas of cultural heritage as he revitalizes overexposed, familiar imagery.

'The highest dealer, MANGO, kisses from the office' (2012) is based on source material used by stylist Terry Jones.