Art

I love portraying people when they are not playing roles, when they are just being themselves. That’s when they truly are at their most beautiful. So I need to know a little bit about them, to connect on some level with their stories. Once that happens, everything else flows.

Since the turn of the last century the art world has seen the decline of the Artist (capital A) and the rise of the “artrepreneur,” the “creative careerist” and the myriad of other fanciful terms that can all be distilled down to just “creative” (noun). I find myself cringing when I hear these terms.

A walk through a popular museum of art or a search on the internet makes it abundantly clear that the portrayal of women is a popular subject in painting. More often than not they are unclothed. This image of a nude woman in painting invites spectatorship.

Spotted in: SOMA, SF

Spotted in: The Mission, SF

Renowned graffiti artist, KATSU, is making waves again with his new painting series using drones. Have art and technology finally merged once and for all? Is this the dawn of the Dark Days or a brilliant—and undeniable—wave of artistic expression?

If suffering makes for better art, the residents of Industry City (not to mention the already-gentrified neighborhoods of SoHo or Bushwick) in New York City should soon be churning out masterpieces by the dozen. The rapid increase in pricing for rental studios in the neighborhood has driven out dozens of artistic types — with many lacking any other housing options. Is the Big Apple artist displacement an American trend?