My name is Rick Prol, my life had originally started in NYC and it will most likely end here too. I have a very laid back style more comfort than fashion in my department. As far as my education, I had been raised alongside those in public school through the city of New York, when the possibility of college arose, I was intrigued in the idea of choosing art school. The scene of the 1980s in the Lower East Side gave me endless inspiration, hoping to successfully convey our issues to the public. Artists are using different mediums and ways of publication in order to get a stronger reaction from the public. There are performers which entertain while conveying strong issues through lyrics, there are street artists who are taking over the streets in order to give a message which can not be escaped. It is time for new art, art as expression, pieces which people can not turn away from, forcing these issues to affect everyone involved. The public wouldn’t know too much about me unless they knew where to look, I tend to let my art showcase my message rather than letting my message come across repetitive, or ingenuine. I have multiple pieces located in the Next to Nothing gallery in New York as well as a few at The Doyle auction. As the years have moved forward I have begun moving more underground, hiding away from others in abandoned warehouses and my apartment. Through my pieces, I plan to explore people’s familiarity and cluelessness regarding the anarchy placed in the lower east side. Towards the end of the 80’s I began working alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, as his assistant. We started a connection through bonding and painting together in a similar time, which led to a strong found work dynamic between the two of us. As much as we would distance ourselves physically, we would have talks on the phone, where he would critique my work and boost my creativity, and encourage my pieces asking that I express myself to every extent of the image. We both had great respect for each other. But all good things come to an end…and as the years past, our icons did too, and the art of the time period started becoming commercialized as Europeans were leaving New York. As years have passed, I have become far more impactful to the frame of time, once people begin thinking of revolution and change for artists and creators during the 1970s-80s in New York, I am one of the contributors who made change an immediate requirement in society. I am currently still creating art in my home, I have paintings that are taking over my living environment, to the point I can not enter rooms in my apartment due to stacks upon stacks of numerously sized canvases, left completely unorganized until I feel compelled to come back to them. Through my art, I felt the obligation to bring open the eyes of new york residence to the danger which is vastly apparent in urban realities. In order to give the public an intriguing and new perspective of these issues, I created art which came across with a mood construed of horror alongside elements of humor which resonated with me as an artist.
Jean-Michel Basquiat. Accessed January 29, 2019. http://basquiat.com/artist-timeline.htm.
Kalm, James. “Rick Prol.” The Brooklyn Rail. Accessed January 29, 2019. https://brooklynrail.org/2004/01/artseen/rick-prol.
Prol, Rick. Blue Demon Like Figure Riding a Bike Holding a Head in a Surreal Landscape. 1985. Burchard Galleries, St. Petersburg.
STORE FRONT WINDOWS: RICK PROL: THE WAY BACK MACHINE. East Village, NYC.
“The Devil on the Door.” Daily Intelligencer. Accessed January 29, 2019. http://nymag.com/arts/art/features/jean-michel-basquiat-2011-9/index1.html.
