Michael McGregor is an artist who isn’t too worried about being one. In fact he’ll quickly tell you he doesn’t see himself as a painter, even as we were surrounded by stacks of paintings. We first met McGregor (as most call him) at his opening in the winter of 2024, he was showing a series of hotel stationary drawings at The Georgian Hotel. We introduced ourselves as fans of his work, he quickly showed his cards, as he does with most people, he either likes you or he doesn’t. He doesn’t play cute, he doesn’t ask where you’re from to see if you’ll be of some importance to his career, he’s just him, and you better be you, because he can smell the shit.

McGregor comes from New Jersey, a loud Irish family, the only one to come West. He’s dreamed up the world he now lives in, he drives a beautiful Mercedes, same as his grandma’s. He didn’t begin his painting career until a series of a events led him to one in his early 30s – that could be its own essay, all’s to say is it started with not one but two drinks thrown in his face by an ex (to this day he’s thankful for her and those drinks to the face).

His Chuck interview is from around the time we first met McGregor. Pretty quickly after our first interview we realized McGregor was exactly what makes a Chuck artist a Chuck artist. Their ability to relate to the world around them, while simultaneously cultivating their own. We have sat around tables at Musso & Frank’s, ordering his favorite thin cut fries and the prime rib. We’ve stood at Capri Club ordering negronis while his painting hangs above the bar like an image of Pope Francis above an old Italian woman’s bed. We have eaten Chinese food in empty Los Angeles Chinatown dinner parlours. What we’re trying to say is we’ve shared a battlefield with this man, and he, beyond a doubt in our mind, is uniquely his own, and always will be.