BRONX (WABC) — Bronx artist Devon Rodriguez built a worldwide following by doing what he had been doing since childhood: drawing.
Long before his work attracted attention on social media, Rodriguez said art provided an escape from a difficult childhood in the Bronx, a story he now chronicles in his new memoir, “Work in Progress.”
“Growing up in the Bronx, I was always around a lot of shady people, you know, my mom was very abusive and then my dad abandoned me and, you know, I had all these bad influences. I was almost like a little adult, I would have to wake up 8, 9 years old and my mom is like crashed out from the night before. And I just have to go to school by myself. There was no breakfast,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said his grandmother spent years trying to get him out of the home.
“She always used to try to get me to tell the school so I could be removed from my home. Growing up in the Bronx, I was always like, nah I’m not a snitch,” he said.
Through it all, Rodriguez continued to draw.
“I was always, always drawing. There was nothing else I wanted to do,” he said.
Rodriguez applied to an art high school in Manhattan but did not get in, instead attending his zone school in the Bronx. There, he said his art teachers had a profound impact on his life.
“In my home, there was always all these shady characters like thugs and drug dealers. Then when I went to school, I was seeing nice, kind teachers. Wow, this is what I wanna be, I wanna be around positivity. High school, when I met my art teachers, they really saved my life,” Rodriguez said.
One teacher mentored Rodriguez and taught him the fundamentals of art, including drawing portraits. The New York City subway eventually became a classroom where Rodriguez could practice sketching a wide variety of people.
“The subway was always my happy place. All I needed was a sketchbook, a pencil, and then I had my free MetroCard. Growing up, I used to look out the windows and look at the graffiti on the walls, and all of it inspired me,” Rodriguez said.
Years later, Rodriguez saw an opportunity to bring those subway portraits to social media. He recalled writing himself a note: “07/26/2020 at 02:50AM. TikTok viral idea drawing people on the subway.”
His sketches, paintings and portraits have since taken him around the world, a development Rodriguez said can still be difficult to comprehend.
“I told my grandma, like, oh, I have to go to Brooklyn for this art event. She was like, Brooklyn? What that… Like, that’s, like, exotic to us. We don’t go to Brooklyn. We just stay in the Bronx. You know, even me traveling the world… still doesn’t even make sense to me,” he said.
Rodriguez said he is especially proud of representing Latinos through his work and his story.
“You know, I’m so proud of representing my people, all my Latinos. You know, when they read this, they’re gonna relate to me so well, and they’re gonna see all the little Easter eggs. I hope they take the story as they could do anything,” Rodriguez said.
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