Virgil Ortiz is a Pueblo artist inspired by two loves: the traditional figurative ceramic style he learned from his mother, and Star Wars. These influences resulted in Revolt 1680/2180, a sculpture series retelling the story of his ancestors’ rebellion against Spanish colonizers in 1680, complete with laser blasters and an ancient astronaut vibe.

We spoke to this internationally-renowned artist after his appearance at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts this past October as part of the Hear My Voice: Native American Art of the Past and Present exhibition. In this exclusive interview, we talked about his work, his process, and how he avoids appropriation of his work, even as he collaborates with fashion designers like Donna Karan.

A puppeteer from Chattanooga who gets his big break in New York developing a groundbreaking television show that ends up influencing a generation, then goes on to make his mark in the art world — not a story you hear every day, but one that describes the beginning and current career of artist Wayne White. Squeezed in the middle somewhere, is the move to Hollywood, award-winning music videos, and even more television shows, which is not bad for a kid from the deep south who took inspiration from Robert Crumb comics.

White’s latest work, Monitorium, explores the Battle of Hampton Roads in a multi-media installation and is currently on display at Virginia MOCA. The artist recently sat down with RVA Mag founder Tony Harris to discuss the exhibit, his fascination with history and dark humor, and how he jump-started his career with puppet shows.

From being shot at while writing graffiti in a concrete-lined river bed in Compton, California, to painting large-scale acrylic paintings found in the collections of famous musicians and actors, the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art’s Turn the Page artist, Greg “Craola” Simkins, has bridged the genre gap with the help of fellow artists and friends, childhood books, and the brief but intense Pogs game fad.

Simkins started out painting graffiti in the early 1990s in Torrance, California, just south of the city of Los Angeles. He soon began meeting other writers from nearby Compton and South Gate who had witnessed his work, and they brought him to their own spots to letter, painting in riverbeds and under freeways off of the 405 and 710 highways outside of his home area. He exchanged black books, a graffiti artist’s prized sketchbook, with other writers, adding detailed tags of his own to theirs, a routine in which he became highly sought-after.

Since leaving the corporate world and advertising industry to form their own artistic duo, ASVP has developed a graphic style marrying Eastern and Western iconography with nods to advertising, pop, and comic book culture.

Their identity layered behind the acronym that labels their effort, they continue to make impacts in every city they visit with their own unique visual language.

Based in Brooklyn, the duo recently immersed themselves in the gracious Richmond scene in order to take part in the Richmond Mural Project. Their work, located at 2315 West Main Street, was a strong part of this year’s showcase, and fans and artists alike have raved about the duo’s unique contribution helping to fuel the city’s vibrant energy.

Though mysterious and reticent at times, the duo recently sat down with us and discussed their time in Richmond as well as their current and future projects. More importantly, the duo pulled back the curtain on their artistic philosophy and what drives it, offering a unique insight into one of the art scene’s most sensational artistic partnerships.

I recently had the chance to catch up with Attaboy, co-founder of California-based art magazine Hi-Fructose, at the opening of Virginia MOCA‘s exhibit “Turn The Page” in Virginia Beach which celebrates 10 years of publishing the magazine.

As a fan, it was fun to be surrounded by the artwork that made the publication a favorite of art lovers worldwide. As a publisher with a decade under my belt, it was a meeting of kindred spirits. Attaboy was nice enough to answer a few questions for us in between tacos and proofing their next issue.

“My older daughter said, ‘Daddy, if you’re famous, why do people not stop and take photos of you in the street? If you’re famous, why is it if you come to a restaurant, there are no people with cameras, like a true paparazzi star?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m not really famous. But then when you get into the art world, I’m fairly well-known in the street-art world. That’s why there’s people who want to get things signed… and that’s why nobody really knows who I am when I walk around the streets. It’s perfect.’”

As part of the Richmond Mural Project, David Flores came to RVA with his partner in crime, Olivia Bevilacqua, to paint the town. From the start of his career in the 90s with Shorty’s Skateboards to his recent work creating iconic stained-glass-style murals around the world, Flores has received many accolades in the skateboard, street art, and design worlds. He’s left his mark deep in many underground cultures, and in turn has influenced the mainstream of current culture. His work as part of the Richmond Mural Project indicated both underground and mainstream influences; his giant painting featuring Snoopy and Woodstock, Charles M. Schulz’s universally-recognized characters from the Peanuts comic strip, now dominates the downtown landscape. It was fun sitting down and asking him about it all, from his earliest work to the way he views his legacy. We covered a lot, and had to go a bit off script to do it, but sometimes leaving the beaten path is the best way to have a great coversation.

New York artist Ron English is universally recognized as the godfather of the modern street art movement. His distortions of pop cultural iconography, from fast food logos to Marilyn Monroe and Mickey Mouse, have brought his pointed critique of modern consumer capitalism into the mainstream in striking and unforgettable ways. He’s worked with Super Size Me filmmaker Morgan Spurlock on multiple films, painted album covers for The Dandy Warhols and (uh) Chris Brown, and even designed imagery for the Obama presidential campaign in 2008. The term he coined for his iconoclastic, culture-jamming artwork is “POPaganda,” and his work was chronicled in the 2005 documentary film of the same name by Pedro Carvajal. 

All of these things make Ron English’s participation in this year’s Richmond Mural Project a true honor for the project and the city--but as English warns in this interview, they may also result in some uncomfortable questions for the RMP organizers to answer later. English’s creation, overlooking eastbound commuters on Leigh St downtown, is yet another of his over 100 modified interpretations of Pablo Picasso’s legendary Guernica. This one features enraged fast food mascots waving pieces of meat in the air with malicious intent, centered around a “Have A Nice Day” smiley-face that splits open at the mouth to reveal a grinning skull. It’s an outstanding painting--one that reveals English to have lost none of his edge over the past decades of his artistic career.

While he was in town, we sat down with Ron English to discuss a wide range of topics, from Guernica and “Abraham Obama” to his experiences creating public art in the South--and quite a bit more. Here’s but a small sampling of all the ground we covered during the interview; keep an eye on our website in the weeks to come for more excerpts from this fascinating conversation.

Recently I spoke with Ryan McGinness about his current exhibition, Studio Visit, on display at the VMFA through October 14. During our interview, I found him to be pleasant, but I also sensed the spirit of a trickster. He knew something I didn't, and he was letting me in on the joke. This duplicity can be found in his work, the foundation of which is a simplified visual language made up of symbols such as those found on everyday street signage. These symbols carry a message to the audience, and when he combines these symbols on a canvas--as he does in Art History Is Not Linear (VMFA), the painting that acts as the centerpiece for his current exhibition--the message becomes complicated, with hundreds of truths there to be discovered. Each symbol has an individual meaning, and when put together as a whole, they tell a bigger story. This is McGinness’s story, which he is filtering through his art. His career has seen him play several roles--the curiosity, the artist, the jokester, and the anti-establishment insurgent working within the establishment. He is a Cheshire Cat playing within the fine art world--no wonder he found this conversation amusing.

Leonard McGur aka Futura 2000 has a career spanning over 40 years that goes back to the earliest days of the modern street art movement.He got his start painting on the New York subways back in the ‘70s when that was still possible, but soon built a career in the fine art world, beginning with his gallery showings alongside such famous New York artists of the 80s as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He worked extensively with The Clash during that same period, doing artwork for their single “This Is Radio Clash” and a guest vocal on their album Combat Rock, as well as appearing on tour with them, doing live paintings while they performed. In the ‘90s, he created artwork for the covers of many releases on Mo Wax Records, as well as for the electronic music project UNKLE. He’s designed his own clothing under the label Futura Laboratories, and collaborated with many other clothing companies, from Nike and North Face to the NYC-based streetwear company Supreme. He released a coffee table book in 2000; has designed collectible toys; and made appearances in music videos, documentaries, and video games.

A true renaissance man, there are not many creative endeavors that Futura has not turned his hand to at some point.