Preview: John Paul O’Grodnick Solo Show @ ReBar – Dumbo, Brooklyn, NYC

John Paul O’Grodnick or JPO is a name that I have been hearing a lot about for the past year or so. Several artists and friends in the NYC street art scene have been telling me to check out his work… “His work is really interesting… and he’s a super nice guy!!” After spending a couple hours with him and lending a hand to get the last of over 30 original pieces to the gallery I can attest everything I heard is true.

John describes his work as “Raw Emotion”… This is a valid designation, but to me his work is a modern take on familiar classics. John’s style builds heavily from the masters like Warhol, Basquiat, & Haring while incorporating a street savvy wonderment greatly needed in the current NYC art scene.

That being said yesterday afternoon after somehow missing John at least 6 or 7 times at local shows over the past year I drove down to his sub basement studio in deep south Brooklyn to help him move his custom painted chair to ReBar in Dumbo.

As promised John was was an extremely nice guy, and his work was intelligent and raw. During our half hour drive we discussed his upbringing in Connecticut where he was raised in a musical family who always exposed him to the arts, and his strange path of having no formal art training, but through hard work and natural intuition developing his own style.

I believe John’s style has also progressed in such an expedient manor because of his many collaborations initiated by John’s will to always find his way to the right show. This fact is perfectly demonstrated by his pieces created with Craig Anthony Miller for the show tomorrow night.

Besides having work in 13 shows over the past 12 months (sharing gallery shows with the likes of Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, MERES ONE, Chris RWK, & Adam Dare) John is developing his own brand called “Not Kansas”:

“It (Not Kansas) was inspired by when I was growing up, I would come to NYC with my parent and I fell in love with it… and when I moved here it wasn’t anything like it was then... I’m trying to bring back the old feel of the old NYC”