Sans titre, 2021

Bazooka Joe, Gangster of Art  

Bazooka Joe, Gangster of Art, is a self-taught artist working in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "Gangster Art" is his name for what he makes: loud flat color, symbols and letters, and figures that refuse a single category. Aristocrats with street faces, men and women fused into one body, jesters, queens and fighters wearing lipstick. An alphabet of his own invention runs around the borders, and in his current body of work it moves into the center of the picture. He works in acrylic, oil and marker on canvas, linen, wood and paper, often in frames he makes himself, and in painted sculpture.

In 2018 the prison service that had once held him commissioned Walls of Hope, a permanent mural about 197 by 30 feet on the outer wall of that facility: a figure holding a skull in one hand and a heart in the other, beneath the words TO BE OR NOT TO BE. It is still standing.

In 2017 he showed a solo exhibition across forty billboards, the flagship artist commission of a national design season. A feature documentary about him, Gangster of Art, shot over eight years, was an official selection at an international art film festival in 2023 and broadcast on national television. His auction record, set in 2023, is USD 37,760. His work is held in private collections in Europe and the United States.