Michael Victor Troutman is an award-winning artist and published writer from Kentuckiana. He has exhibited his creations since the late 1990s throughout Louisville, Kentucky and southern Indiana. He earned two BA degrees (Spanish and political science, with a minor in international studies) from Indiana University (where he published scholarly research, ''A Political Portrait of Jean Genet Through His Theatre'') and briefly attended graduate school in Indianapolis for an MAT in Spanish at IUPUI. He has also published independent research entitled ''The Essence of Eugene: A Populist Progressive Politician from Hoosier History'' in Progressive Indiana.