Michael (Meikel) Church (he/him/his) is an LGBTQ+ Mixed-media artist based in North Little Rock, Arkansas. His work is autobiographical and attempts to connect his present with his past. As an artist he has taught himself through sharing and exhibiting his work to accept, and celebrate who he is. His work has evolved from very simple collage to intricate mixed-media fine artwork. The goal of his work is to create a combination of southern Americana and imaginative surrealism. His work has been published (magazines, album covers, book covers) and exhibited (i.e. museums, art galleries) both nationally, and internationally.

I am a southern LGBTQ+ artist, and more generally, a witness to what all that entails. Growing up in Arkansas was never easy for a gay boy and it wasn’t until I started creating art in my forties that I started examining what that actually means to me. Living in the closet created, both metaphorically and literally, a dark place for me to grow. I use art to tell my story of growing up alone, and invisible. I create spaces where there is room to grow, evolve, and reflect. I have learned through the narrative of my artwork to create a present, and ultimately a future where I can be who I am. I believe that art can communicate, educate, inform, inspire and reveal truth. My goal is to create minimal thought-provoking imagery that communicates my own story, but that also raises discourse and ultimately action to examine the world and our place in it. I imagine that the individual components of my collage work are like song lyrics. To someone looking in from the outside the pieces may seem disjointed, and unlike each other. But to me they represent fragments of a story, my story, our story, waiting to be strung together into some sort of coherent order. Thats my job as an artist, as a storyteller.