Biography

Mike Cockrill’s socially engaged art has consistently challenged the rosy assumptions of American exceptionalism. Since his first exhibitions in Brooklyn and the East Village in the early 1980s, Cockrill has employed ever-evolving styles, from brash cartooning, textbook oil painting techniques and multi-media collage - sometimes turning a blowtorch on his recent canvases – to navigate and dismantle the vernaculars of visual language. Raised in the Washington, DC suburbs during the Cold War era, Cockrill has lived and worked in Brooklyn, NY since 1979.

Mike Cockrill’s painting “Excavation” is currently on display at the Heller Museum at Hebrew Union Collage in the exhibition “Children of Ruth: Artists Choosing Judaism,” thru April 14th. His solo exhibition of recent drawings and collage paintings “Falling in Place” is at Mosaic Artspace in Long Island City thru March 14, 2026