About

I have been creating for as long as I can remember. I was born March 26, 1991 at the Lehigh Valley Hospital. I grew up in Kutztown and currently reside in the village of Stony Run. I was fortunate to grow up in a household with plenty of creative energy and encouragement as both my parents are gifted artists.

I started looking at creating art differently once I reached high school. I enrolled in AP Art classes and began drawing inspiration from street artists like Banksy. It was a natural attraction since I grew up in Kutztown, the hometown of the world’s most famous graffiti artist, Keith Haring. Around 2006, young and misguided with lots of rebellious energy, I began painting monsters on walls all over town. They were noticed (some people loved them, the police did not) and led to organizing my first gallery show at Eckhaus in Kutztown. There were undercover police at the show scoping out paintings as some of the subject matter looked familiar.

After graduating high school in 2009 I enrolled in the fine arts program at Kutztown University. I had been struggling with opiate dependency since 2007 and my habit turned into full fledged heroin addiction by the summer of 2009. I had a hard time relating to my professors and peers, or anyone for that matter. I kept up with my personal work though, and produced a huge amount of paintings considering my circumstances. In 2011 I dropped out of Kutztown University and started learning to weld at Northampton Community College where I received an associates degree.

I have been clean from heroin for 7 years. Art saved my life in many ways, and it has been my only reliable and constant source of of enjoyment for over a decade . The experiences and trauma I endured as a heroin addict certainly inform everything I do to this day, including my artwork. I feel unbelievably fortunate to have survived. I strive to make the most of each day and to share my art with anyone I can, especially people who are struggling, in hopes that I can introduce them to painting as a form of therapy, or at least show them myself as living proof that even if you’re shooting heroin everyday it’s never too late to make a change.

The subject matter in my work is predominately humanoid faces. Lately I’ve been getting even more abstract, drawing inspiration from used palletes and dirty old coffee tables, covered in layers of graffiti, spilled beer, house paint, cigarette burns; beautiful in their colorful randomness and juvenility. I create work with anything that will make a mark, and collecting mark making materials is an obsession of mine. My painting and drawing is driven by the tactile nature of a brush on canvas, pen on paper, finger covered in paint on cardboard, whatever it may be. I get physical satisfaction from making marks and simply follow the good feelings and let them inform what is happening on the canvas. “Improvisation” or “stream of conciousness” could be used to describe my method. I have never planned or drafted a piece, everything happens naturally with as little thinking as possible. I like to keep my brain out of my art; my thoughts and anxieties take up too much of my life already, and painting is an escape for me.

RESUME

Selected Shows

Eckhaus Art Gallery
157 W Main St, Kutztown, PA
“Letters from Earth”
January 21-31, 2009
Collaborative show with Cody Brinkman

FireFly Bookstore
230 W Main St, Kutztown, PA
“Masks”
November 2012
Solo Show

What’s This?! Media
Kutztown, PA
October 2014
Collaborative show with Rob Akers

Art n Soul Studios
7720 Main Street,#5A, Fogelsville, PA
July 2015
Semi-Permanent Installation

New Arts Program
PO Box 82, Kutztown PA
napconn@aol.com
Invitational Salon of Small Works 2015, 2016, 2017

The Publishing House Co, LLC
243 W Main St. Kutztown, PA
Kutztown Art Krawl
April 2016
Solo Show

GoggleWorks
201 Washington St. Reading, PA
"Art of Jazz"
April 2017
Group Show, part of Berks Jazz Fest

Tröegs Independent Brewing
200 East Hershey Park Drive, Hershey, PA
"Art of Tröegs" 
Summer 2017
Hand painted beer bottles selected to be in brewery's permanent collection

Education

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
2009-2011
Studied Fine Arts

Northampton Community College
2011-2013
Associates Degree in Welding Technology

Clay on Main
313 Main St, Oley, PA 19547
987-0273
Intern and work trade 2014-2015