Kre8

When he moved to Florida at age 25, his creative life took a turn. He began working as a tattoo artist, a natural enough extension of graffiti even if it meant shifting gears from huge walls to small patches of skin. The tattoo business taught him a tremendous amount about being an artist. Suddenly he was researching the Surrealist art of Salvador Dali and other sources. He was also quietly making his own paintings. He eloquently relates art and tattooing:

My tattoos are about self- expression and mark moments in an era that taught me that I could make it that day spend it that night. Tattooing taught me composition perspective, color theory, anatomy, and the interactions of tones. It was hard to take that really large scale of graffiti to the micro dotted on to somebody’s skin. It might have divided me from the common person, but it connected me to who I really am: A tattooed man with values and a handful of other attributes. To see my art clearly, open your mind to the possibilities of believing in yourself.

“Vivid Mayhem” (2018), Kevin Vigil

In New Jersey and eventually New York, over the course of the next seven years he made a name for himself at the top of the tattoo world. But the lure of Florida was too much and he headed back to Miami, where his painting blossomed. “I came to Miami and that’s when I really got the art bug,” he reveals. Kre8 talks about the city the way Ernest Hemingway rhapsodized about Paris, a magical place of inspiration that welcomes the creative classes. “I’ve always been immersed in culture, and Miami is my muse,” he tells us. These days when he strolls about the internationally renowned Wynwood neighborhood, a district of former warehouses where some of the most vibrant murals including his own began attracting art lovers as long ago as the 1990s, he sees a tourist destination, and he is part of it:

Wynwood really made me fall in love with colors. New Yorkers live with three colors in their drab palette of life: black, grey and dark grey. Moving to Miami brought such a different feel all the way around. It is so colorful and so vibrant and full of life, immersed in fluorescent pinks, fluorescent yellows, and the palettes were just mind blowing. Wynwood is beyond inspirational. It has brought a community of artists together. It has been the driving force of a lot of creative minds. Wynwood is a place of creation. It is the hub of creativity. Every single person, every artist that goes there gets to express their own true self.

“The Kre8tion of Dali” (2018), Kre8

This was the thrilling moment when he was discovered as an artist. He was invited to exhibit his paintings at the City of Miami Springs City Hall. With a vibrant palette and vivid imagery, the young painter with the colorful past found his mostly young audience. One thing led to another and his work was suddenly everywhere, on view at pop-up shows, the prestigious Art Basel fair in Miami Beach and a few local galleries. When Park West brought him on board, literally showcasing his work on more than a hundred cruise ships, Kre8 reached a whole new level of fame. It was time for painting to take over full-time from tattooing, with room of course for family life (he lives in Miami with three children). An idealist with a ton of life experience and a paintbrush that never rests, he sees his art as a way for us to bond: “I want people to see life. I want people to be able to relate to it. Everything is so separated, and I want to bring us together with my art.”

“Knowledge of Self” (2018), Kre8

Kre8 A Guide to Collecting

As his choice of subject matter confirms, Dalí is a primary point of reference for Kre8, but he has also been influenced by other Surrealists, including Rene Magritte, as well as Modernist masters such as Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, and the Abstract Expressionists including Jackson Pollock. Because of their common bond with graffiti, and the vigorous use of black in their compositions, it is natural to compare him with Jean-Michel Basquiat.

In addition to understanding the role of graffiti and tattooing on his working process, the key to appreciating Kre8’s originality is the way he negotiates the delicate balance between color and black-and-white, and this takes us back to the contrast he drew between the black, white and gray of New York and the burst of color in Miami. “The color—the abstract—is us, as people,” he says. “We are the burst of inspiration that’s coming out of the black-and-gray world. No matter how black-and-gray the world is, we still shine.”

“Don’t Burst My Bubble” (2018), Kre8

Kre8 saw the opening between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism and broke through to a combination of the two where his painterly skills and illustrative talent could make their impact. In an early work such as “Knowledge of Self,” the bold graphic punch of the muralist meets the more intimate, more lyrical passage of pure painting, where touch is the essential aspect of the making. It opens the way to consider the dialogue between black and white (the technical term is grisaille) and bold color in his work.

“Deep Roots of Perseverance” (2018), Kre8