Michael Engebretson

Michael Engebretson's kaleidoscopic drawings, paintings, and sculptures map a future existence beyond Earth, where inhabitants travel through galaxies by spaceship and live on distant moons. The residents of this intergalactic civilization, which Engebretson refers to as a Class 5, are hybrid beings. Embracing their human, cyborg, and extraterrestrial qualities, they develop more equitable healthcare systems and renewable energy sources. “Their society is far more advanced than us,” says Engebretson. He has continued this body of speculative fiction for over 15 years.

An avid autism advocate, Engebretson would like viewers of his work to understand how, as he says, “the autistic mind operates.” He describes the way that his brain works as “just like a cyborg: part human, and part machine,” and he hopes that his work will help people to understand the vitality of neurodiversity. “Minds, minds can coexist,” he says. “Can can coexist with other people, with everybody. Isn’t that awesome?”

Engebretson has practiced at Interact Center for Visual & Performing Arts since 2016. He has presented work at Interact Gallery, Art Enables (Washington, D.C.), Make Studio (Baltimore, MD), and Gamut Gallery (Minneapolis, MN). In 2021, he was a key contributing artist and performer in Zoomtopia, Interact's first virtual theater production and companion exhibition. Engebretson was the inaugural artist in residence at Interact Gallery in 2022, which led to his solo exhibition at Interact Gallery in 2023. He and his work have been featured in MPR News, The Star Tribune, and White Bear Press.

About this mural:

His vibrant work maps a future existence beyond Earth called a Class Five civilization. “Class Five inhabitants are transdimensional, multiversal, nonlinear space-time continuum thinkers,” he says. “They are more free-thinking than we are. They are open minded to any possibility, any idea, any conversation, any scenario.”

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