subscribe to style file blog via RSSJordan Betten’s Secret to Art World Success? Bring the Happy
November 7, 2008 10:12 pm
Lost Art leather man Jordan Betten is as handy with a canvas as he is with the skins. “I’ve been painting for ten years,” explained Betten at yesterday’s opening of his debut show, called Continuous Line. “But I feel like this is a good time to make that more of a focus.” Slumping art world be damned; Betten is on to something. Almost three quarters of the drip-painted work he’d put together for Continuous Line had been sold by dealer/instigator Stuart Holt before invites to the show had even gone out. (It must be noted that some were sold to bold-faced, though unnamed, buyers. Oh, the intrigue!) Thus Betten, at the last minute, developed a new group of erotic images especially for his coming-out party as a painter. But by the time Daria Werbowy (seen here with her boyfriend, sometime Lost Art collaborator Kenny Jossick) made it through the doors of Betten’s West Chelsea loft, a healthy portion of the “Erotics” had been red-stickered as well. The key to Betten’s success? “I like my paintings to make people feel good,” he said, steering clear of hoity-toity art talk. “I see a lot of shows that are downers, and that’s cool, if that’s the feeling those artists want to create.” Betten added, “Me? I’m all about happy.”
tags: Jordan Betten, Stuart Holt
