Baker Artist Portfolios

Eric Millikin uses marine biology, occult rituals, hacktivist robotics, artificial intelligence, and extended reality as strategies for alchemical societal transformation and fighting wealth supremacy. Millikin comes from a working-class family, creating techno-occult artwork while growing up in a mobile home down by the river in the dark woods of rural Michigan. A first-generation college graduate and National Merit Scholar, he earned his BFA from Michigan State University. He has worked as an artist, art director, and union steward in Detroit, creating activist visual journalism published by The Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and Detroit Metro Times. He is a descendant of Mary Eastey who, along with her sister Rebecca Nurse, was executed during the Salem Witch Trials. His invited talks on his occult artwork include “Bringing Witchcraft to the White House” and “Demonology and Deepfakes.” He has been awarded residencies at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore, Maryland, at the Cow House Studios in rural County Wexford, Ireland, and the VR residency “Artist is Absent,” hosted from Travneve, Ukraine as the Russian military invaded. He earned his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, where Edgar Allan Poe grew up, and he is now based in Baltimore, Maryland, where Edgar Allan Poe died. Millikin is an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts, Animation and Interactive Media at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.