Director, cinematographer, visual artist, writer, and underground film legend Mike Kuchar was born in New York City in 1942, and began making 8mm home movies starring friends and family with his twin brother George at age 12 in the Bronx. They became central to the 1960s NY underground film scene, screening work alongside Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and Jack Smith. Called "legends in the world of experimental film" by Roger Ebert, the Kuchars have influenced filmmaking giants including John Waters, Todd Solondz, Pedro Almodovar, and Atom Egoyan.

Mike attended commercial art high school with the likes of Gerard Malanga of the Warhol factory and worked as a fashion photo retoucher while making his own 16mm movies of which Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965) and The Craven Sluck (1967) are most noted for their camp quality. In the past 10 years, Mike has focused on more intimate one person expressionistic films. He coauthored, with his brother George REFLECTIONS FROM A CINEMATIC CESSPOOL published in 1997, a humorous memoir discussing four decades of filmmaking and including an introduction by director John Waters.

Throughout his life Mike has also drawn, prodigiously, an equally amplified world of exaggerated characters. Influenced by his time with 19th century French paintings, natural history museums, New York and San Francisco gay underground and American comic culture, producing exquisitely drafted scenes of Man throughout history from the late 1970s to present. The drawings were made for various homoerotic comic publications in the US, including Meatmen, Manscape, Gay Heart Throbs, and First Hand, among others. Mike's films and illustrations have been exhibited internationally.

In a 2008 Artforum review on the Kuchar brothers exhibition, critic Bruce Hainley deemed Mike and George, "two of the most important artists this country has ever produced."

Mike Kuchar has participated in exhibitions at venues that include François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles (2012); [2nd floor projects], San Francisco (2012); The Apartment, Vancouver (2012); and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (2002). Mike currently teaches 'Electro-graphic Sinema' in the film department at the San Francisco Art Institute.