The Canvas

I attended high school with artist Ben Angotti. His work always fascinated me back then. When I moved back to Brooklyn a few years ago, his work had become quite popular here. He had become well-known for the artwork that he would produce during an art battle. Art battles are live, competitive painting events. During these events, a winner is determined by public vote.

Ben Angotti has a surreal style in all of his artwork. Most of his pieces depict faces of beautiful women in sensual/sexual poses, with a violent and almost demonic undertone. Although he uses different mediums in all of his pieces (stone sculpture, ivory carvings, photoshop etc.), during art battles he mostly uses oil on canvas or he spray paints. One of his more famous art battles is one he did back in 2007 for MTV.

Here are a few of his sculptures:

And some of his spray paintings:

I think that the most amazing part about Ben Angotti’s work is the amount of time that he spends on his paintings. He only works on them briefly, spending 1-2 hours on each mural. He believes that working this way helps him to be more spontaneous and creative.