NYC subway artist, Devon Rodriguez, captures ‘moment in history we’ve never seen before’
Devon Rodriguez has been drawing strangers on the subway as part of his “Subway Series” since 2010 when he was a high school freshman in the South Bronx. Hoping to transfer to a different school in midtown, he sought help from his high school art teacher to develop his portfolio. The teacher showed him some subway sketches he’d done and Rodriguez began doing similar sketches himself.
“I’ve been doing these sketches since 2010 but they really just started taking off online in the last five or six months,” Rodgriguez says. “Six months ago, I only had about 30,000 followers on Instagram and now I have 1.6 million.”
At the beginning of the COVID crisis in the city, Rodriguez had about three months worth of commissions that he had to finish, but after that he was itching to get back down into the subway to capture this historic moment. Since then, he’s created fascinating work capturing the face of the pandemic in the city’s subway system.
“I just thought this would be a perfect way to cover this moment in history,” he says. “I love the concept of it and I like the idea of seeing my work before and during the pandemic. It was a no-brainer to do it with everyone wearing masks.”
“I always wanted to succeed as an artist and now it’s happening,” he said.
A kid from the South Bronx living his best life.
Sources:
- https://youtu.be/1EgaxuLKKMU
- https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/the-nyc-artist-thats-gone-super-viral-drawing-strangers-on-the-subway-021921
- https://abc7ny.com/subway-artist-in-subways-devon-rodriguez-coronavirus/6504652/
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