about
Mike King (b. 1987) is a painter from Austin, TX living in Brooklyn, NY. His work often satirizes American debauchery and confronts themes of absurdism, violence, and excessive consumption. Through bold imagery and unconventional materials, he reveals the contradictions within his own experiences of American life, blending humor and critique to question societal values.
With decades of experience in manual labor, particularly in recycling and construction, Mike now salvages discarded textiles from the garment industry, and second hand clothing to construct his paintings. The materials he uses sometimes carry the remnants of their past lives, embodying elements of abandonment and subversion, serving as traces of the excess and waste ingrained in contemporary culture. His work uses color as form, extracting the vibrant synthetic hues of the toxic fashion world to express the more lugubrious undercurrents in his work.
Mike’s practice brings together concepts from constructivism, outsider art, pop art, color field painting, textile art, and painting history broadly to create his vivid scenes. His simplified visual language developed from a newfound approach to art in his early 30s, pivoting from photography and film to learning how to draw and paint.
Mike graduated cum laude with a BFA in Illustration from Pratt Institute in 2022. He spent 2023 in Buenos
Aires, Argentina at the Taller Paz Soldan, developing his studio practice and studying the history of constructivist artists in Latin America. He is a current student in the Studio Art MFA program at Hunter College in New York City.
Aires, Argentina at the Taller Paz Soldan, developing his studio practice and studying the history of constructivist artists in Latin America. He is a current student in the Studio Art MFA program at Hunter College in New York City.