Formerly a tattoo artist and semi-professional boxer, self-instructed Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick is considered a renegade in the contemporary art scene. His imagery is inspired by street life in Chicago, childhood encounters with Catholic icons, superheroes, industrialization and contemporary politics. Fitzpatrick’s early artistic career focused primarily on printmaking, in more recent years he turned to large scale mixed media drawings, paintings and collages. This new body of etchings reflect his return to printmaking and his skill in creating small etchings with the precision of a needle on skin, revealing his personal vocabulary of enigmatic symbols. Fitzpatrick’s work can be found in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, and many other public collections.
The first time I noticed his work when I studied the covers of Steve Earle, but now that I have his book Dirty Boulevard I can only admire his work even more. These are among the most poignant drawings I have ever seen.
the book is available at www.ftn-books.com
