ART SHOW: Artist Oriel Ceballos with his paintings. (Photo Courtesy Oriel Ceballos)
NEW YORK CITY— Oriel Ceballos is an artist on a mission.
The successful artist and entrepreneur—who spent seven years selling his art full time on the streets and subways of New York—has opened a studio inside the Mana Contemporary building in Jersey City. He creates playful, abstract art that often has cultural or political themes.
“My themes just have to do with anything that relates to the Black struggle,” said Ceballos, 41, “I’m Afro-Latino … as a person who has Afro-centric features, I want to make art that speaks to them, to this group.”
And, from time to time, you can still catch him selling art on NYC streets.
“Selling in the streets was fun,” Ceballos added. “It was something that once I got a taste of making money from my brain, you know, creating something in the immaterial, making it physical, making it concrete in the material world—and then having it physically be in someone’s else’s home, is a rush to me.”
