Mike Fitzsimmons is an American painter and muralist born in St. Paul, MN 1979. He lives in Saint Paul and creates art on planet Earth under the name FITZ (FITZ651). Besides creating art Fitzsimmons loves camping, barbecue, kittens, yard games, bourbon, basketball, music and video games. His inspiration comes from his life experience, family and friends.
Fitzsimmons became known for his work with John Grider in the artistic collaboration known as Broken Crow. The two artists began creating and showing art together in 2003. Since then, Broken Crow has attained global recognition for their pioneering use of large-scale stencils in the increasingly established arena of street art. The two artists went their separate ways in 2012 to pursue solo careers.
Recently, Fitzsimmons’ paintings reflect his interests in both technology and nature. Combining the two ideas abstractly connects a lesson from the past and a punch line from the future. The aggressive style of painting, combined with hyper-detailed stencils, is both playful and sophisticated. Fitzsimmons’ art features blue skies, overgrown plants, and various robots within a moment of malfunction freeing them from the task they were created for.
The effects of his efforts live somewhere in the vast gray area between street art and public art. As such, Fitzsimmons has contributed to countless exhibitions. His art has been published in the book “Stencil History X”, “Mural Art: On Huge Public Surfaces Around the World”, “Street Art New York”, “Street Art: The Best Urban Art from Around the World”, “Graffiti 365”, and a couple police files.
Fitzsimmons has been recognized and selected for numerous grants, awards, and residency programs. To date, he has painted 152 murals around the world. His mural art can be seen in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, Milwaukee, Chicago, Baltimore, Reno, Nashville, Indianapolis, Austin, Dallas, Albany, New York City, Mexico, and Africa.