In the Artist’s Own Words — joey FeldMaN

I’m a self-taught artist, born in Philadelphia and now based in Los Angeles. I started from scratch—no roadmap, no safety nets, no connections, no business plan. Just an obsession with drawing I couldn’t shake. Somewhere along the way that obsession turned into a life, a daily practice, and a community of collectors who somehow see pieces of themselves in the chaos I create.

I never pre-plan a painting. I don’t sketch out the ending or calculate where it’s supposed to go. I let the marks lead. Ink spills, paper tears, canvases fight back. My job is to show up and keep pushing until something alive starts pushing back.

Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it’s sharp. Sometimes it feels like scratching an itch I’ll never get rid of.

My work is about chaos, humor, survival, and release—the tantrum, not the resolution. It’s not about perfection; it’s about getting it out. I make distorted faces, restless lines, and colors that collide. I mix abstraction and figuration because life itself is a mess of images, moods, noise, and contradictions all happening at once.

I’m self-made. No teachers, no institutions, no gatekeepers—just persistence. I work every day with my cat, Boy Boy, nearby as proof that life and art don’t need to be separated. For me, painting isn’t therapy and it isn’t decoration—it’s a necessity.

Fed by Ralph Steadman, David Lynch, comics, old sketchbooks, noise, and things that probably shouldn’t work together.

My art is a record of being here: the marks, the tantrums, the chaos that somehow turns into something permanent.

jF