Wade Mickley is a Virginia-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice integrates drawing, graphic design, and mixed-media assemblage. With a professional background spanning textile printing, editorial illustration, and NASA graphic design, he brings a strong understanding of materials, process, and visual communication. Mickley works primarily with found objects—especially worn, weathered, and decayed elements that hold traces of use and time. His approach blends intuitive exploration with intentional craftsmanship, relying on tactile, hands-on making as essential to both his creative clarity and well-being. Through cutting, shaping, and assembling collected fragments, he creates dimensional works that investigate memory, natural forms, and emotional resonance.
Favoring transformation over literal depiction, Mickley invites viewers to interpret the quiet narratives within each piece, encouraging reflection and imaginative engagement.
My work grows from a lifelong fascination with the whimsical and the wonderfully improbable. I am drawn to overlooked materials—rusted metal, weathered wood, and old vinyl records—approaching them not as cast-offs but as sources of raw potential and untold stories. Through a detail-driven, almost obsessive process of cutting, etching, and assembling, I transform these fragments into mixed-media creations that hover between invention and discovery. I see myself as both a maker and an experimenter, guided by an alchemical impulse that transforms found objects into forms that feel both familiar and otherworldly. Humor and seriousness often coexist in my pieces, inviting both curiosity and reflection. Influenced by graphic design, illustration, folk art, primitive art, and the imaginative energy of childhood, my work blends unlikely references into cohesive, expressive beings. Ultimately, my work explores transformation—of materials, expectations, and hopefully the viewer.