Michael Hussar was born 1964 in Southern California. He first took interest in art because of his father whom he would watch paint and occasionally work alongside him. He began painting when he was 6 years old, although he had been drawing before that. He later studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California where he taught painting afterwards.
Michael Hussar is known best for his oil paintings. Taking influences from the work of the old masters, he uses a combination of rococo, baroque and other classical styles combined with contemporary subject matter.
Instead of canvas, Hussar prefers to work on gessoed wood panels to create paintings, as opposed to a surface mixing technique. He prefers to work from dark value, to light, focusing on atmosphere before moving to detail. His paintings are provocative and shocking from certain angles. He plays around with religious codes, in a universe combining the fantastic and the horrific.