Mike Egan never set out to become a death artist. He started as a shy kid in Pittsburgh who found his voice through tracing cartoons and skateboard graphics. After studying printmaking in college - falling in love with the bold black linework of Jose Guadalupe Posada and the German Expressionists - he returned home and started painting. Really bad paintings, he'll tell you. But he kept going.

Then his path took an unexpected turn into funeral directing. By 2005, Mike was working as an embalmer in Reading, PA, handling 500 calls a year across four locations. Meaning, he spent countless hours alone in his apartment, waiting for the phone to ring. Someone dies, the phone rings, you go to work. In that solitude, in all that waiting between life and death, he finally found his artistic voice.

He merged the bold lines from his printmaking days with his love of traditional American and prison-style tattooing, his direct experiences with mortality, and his fascination with religious imagery, skeletons, and devils. In 2006, he sold three paintings at a gallery show opening night. Since then, he's worked with galleries and collectors worldwide.

Join us for an honest conversation about how solitude becomes creative fuel, how death work shaped Mikes bold graphic aesthetic, and what happens when you spend your days with the dead and your nights making beauty from what you've seen.