Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael McIntosh.
Hi Michael, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My name is Michael John McIntosh and i’m from Jamaica Queens New York City, by way of the Bay Area and most recently Memphis Tennessee. I have been an Artist my entire life and it has led me down a path of creative freedom and a variety of successes. Upon telling my grandparents that i wanted to go to art school, my Granddad told me “Black people don’t do art”! While shocked that he said it, i Understood why he said it, and as a result I decided to pursue my dreams and attend The School of Visual Arts in NYC. I began my career as a Graphic Designer and Motion Designer with BET Networks and over the following 15 years I would go on to work with companies and clients like Disney, Apple, Coca-Cola, HBO, Royal Caribbean, The NBA, BBC, Viacom and Apple along with a several other companies. All of my professional gumption is deployed, ultimately to be able to produce art that is a result of a niche perspective rarely experienced by Black people much less Black men: professional capacity in tandem with an authentic spirit for the Arts. I am essentially on a mission to become my own greatest Patron.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Choosing a path in the arts as a Black man has had its obstacles. Being followed in art stores, being subject to cultural bias when your work is viewed, the list goes on and on. I remember having my work be called “urban” may times in college, with no substantial explanation besides the fact that I’m Black. Our historical absence in these spaces has created a scenario where i’m a unicorn, and i’ve either been assumed to have been directly assisted by others, which i have not been, or that what i’m doing must be “easy”.
Some struggles along the way have been finding community. While I did attend art school, I majored in design. Putting me amidst many talented creatives, but no Artists. At the same time, sourcing feedback for my work has been challenging, while many will compliment my art, I have found it difficult to find a true critique, in the interest of growing.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My practice investigates the intersection of Afro-diasporic mythology, contemporary urban iconography, and spiritual lineage through a conceptual framework I term “Root-surrealism.” Originating from a desire to expand societal arts literacy and dismantle historical barriers surrounding Black artistic production, my work reframes narrative painting into a space of liberation, weightlessness, and cultural archive. Central to my visual language is the deliberate suspension of gravity. Where historical representations of the African diaspora have often emphasized trauma and systemic constraint, my compositions construct whimsical, anti-gravitational environments where figures, sacred flora, ancestral motifs, and contemporary streetwear levitate in unison. Through dynamic layering—spanning figurative watercolor portraiture, narrative acrylic canvases, and tactile gestural abstractions—I synthesize traditional storytelling with cinematic motion. Utilizing pop culture and ancestral symbolism as structural tethers, my work reconnects modern identity to forgotten traditions. I approach painting not merely as aesthetic documentation, but as a site for cultural problem-solving—reimagining the artist’s role as a vital architect of societal transformation, equity, and collective healing.
How do you think about luck?
I’d say that luck has surfaced on my path, as a liquid mirror. Unpredictable, startlingly, simple and primitive, 2-dimensionally honest. The “luck” you speak of the universe’s response to my actions, choices and decisions. As the old saying goes, “we make our own, luck”.
Luck has always and only been of function to and for me, after i’ve already taken a decisive step towards my goals. The chance encounter, finding the right book, the right quote, the ideal person seeing my work and establishing communication, it has always occured after deciding to paint that piece, send that email, and most importantly, showing up.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://michaeljmcintosh.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johninthemiddle/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.j.mcintosh.75/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljmcintosh1/
- Twitter: https://x.com/JOHN_HOBBS
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz86JIJWBlI1f_Lk5HbeSWA
- Other: https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_john_mcintosh_reshaping_the_landscape_of_the_arts
