Biography

Michael Grothusen is a mixed media sculptor who makes objects, installations and has also completed two permanent public commissions for the City of Philadelphia. He has created site-specific works for the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts, Philadelphia International Airport, Michener Art Museum, Drexel University, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Carnegie Mellon University, Gallery Joe, Old School at Crane Arts and The Philadelphia Art Alliance.

 

Current projects involving the use of digital technology in the creation of figurative works have been shown and Gallery 114 in Portland, OR and at the 8th Beijing International Art Biennial in Beijing, China. 

 

 The desire to try and levitate in his studio led to a collaboration with painter Buy Shaver on a two-person exhibition, Matter, at Bucks County Community College in the fall of 2018. His contribution was a mobile that consisted of his body weight that floated around the room on invisible currents of air. His current work, created from digitally manipulated scans made from his body, will be the subject of a one-person exhibiotion at the Goodyear Gallery at Dickinson College in the fall of 2021. 

 

Grothusen is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including three Individual Artists Fellowships from the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. In 1998 he was awarded a Pew Fellowship for sculpture. 

 

He received a BFA from the University of Kansas in 1988 and an MFA from Tyler School of Art in 1991. He is an Associate Professor of  Fine Arts/Sculpture at the University of the Arts.