Dr. Mike Novotny

Transdisciplinary Artist-Author-Practitioner

Over the past five years, Dr. Mike Novotny has developed a transdisciplinary creative practice centered on painting, writing, participatory art, and community-based facilitation. His work explores warriorship, identity, memory, transition, belonging, place, and human becoming. Drawing from more than twenty years of military service, he creates work that holds strength and vulnerability, grief and renewal, and fragmentation and integration in conversation.

In 2022, Dr. Mike created Warrior Heart Gallery, an independent Texas-based initiative serving veterans, military personnel, first responders, and communities navigating personal and collective change. Through Warrior Heart Gallery, he designs and facilitates experiences combining art-centered meditation with other visionary practices such as pilgrimage, reflective writing, storytelling, and earth-based inquiry. These experiences often unfold through collaborative painting, individual creative-care sessions, retreat events, and community art projects. He often extends these practices by providing Creative Care Boxes, which are portable art materials and reflective prompts that participants can use for personal exploration and deeper meaning-making.

Dr. Mike’s recent community-engaged work includes collaborations and partnerships with veteran-serving organizations such as Veteran Rites, military wellness programs like Give an Hour’s Military Mile Project, and eco-centered organizations like Radical Joy for Hard Times. In 2025, he began facilitating collaborative art experiences to promote community witnessing, allowing society to see, hear, and feel warrior culture from fresh new perspectives. He currently offers recurring arts-based programming with Endeavors Wellness Center in El Paso, TX. As a transdisciplinarian, Dr. Mike is passionate about sharing what he learns in warrior communities inside academic settings. His work contributes not only to veterans studies, but also to pilgrimage studies, grief studies, and American studies. He currently serves as a co-presiding officer of the annual veteran studies session at the Pacific Ancient Modern Language Association conference in Seattle, WA.

Dr. Mike’s studio and exhibition history dates back to 2015. Some of his professional highlights include the 2022 DECA Art Auction in Youngstown, Ohio; the 2022 El Paso Art Association Figurative Art Show, where he received a Judges’ Award; the 2025 ALLTRU Gather Gala and Art Auction for Special Operations in Washington, D.C.; and a 2026 Art Exhibit at Southwestern College (Wild Heart Gallery) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His latest commissioned painting, What We Carry, was created for Crescent Moon Theater Productions and emerged from a gathering of veterans and refugees and explored themes of displacement, memory, family, hope, and belonging. His artistic portfolio was examined in 2025 by the Journal of Veterans Studies (JVS). More of his art is expected to be featured in a special edition of Black Veterans Project’s Dark Green Report in November of 2026. One of his most popular pieces, “Warrior Spirit Re-Membered,” will be on the cover of the Journal of Military Veteran and Family Health (JMVFH) in 2027.

Dr. Mike published Guardian Rising: Meditations for the Future Warrior in 2024. His most recent research, A Warrior’s Re-turn, integrated painting, photography, poetry, pilgrimage, reflective writing, and place-based inquiry to examine military transition, identity reconstruction, homecoming, and belonging. Across these endeavors, he continues to expand art from a private studio practice into a shared process of reflection, meaning-making, connection, and public engagement.

To request a workshop, facilitation, consultation, or one-on-one coaching session, please use the contact link below.