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Adam Kluger is a New York City born street artist/photographer/painter/performance artist/playwright/filmmaker/writer. A direct descendant of famed British sculptor Jacob Epstein and a past art student of renowned artist, Ion Theodore, Kluger went to the same high school as Jack Kerouac, and spent some time studying the great artists throughout Europe before settling back in New York. He draws his inspiration from diverse sources that include Jean Dubuffet, Marc Chagall, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Bob Ross, Eric Payson and Pablo Picasso. “Whether I apply chromatic composition, an eclectic palette or color desaturation with my mixed media methods, makes less of a difference, than if the art object resonates with the viewer. It’s totally hit or miss and that’s what makes it so exciting to me,” says Kluger. “I adapt my painting style to the subject matter—and New York City has no shortage of fascinating subjects.
 
“To me, all my subjects have a dramatic arc, a back-story, a heroic or tragic quality… but ultimately it’s up to the viewer to imbue the art with a particular meaning. It’s almost Jungian in a way. I believe that art is singular to the individual the same way dreams are. I am drawn to non-sentimental slices of life,” says the artist, who is often seen roaming city streets capturing images, “but life in New York City—by its very nature—is full of irony, drama, beauty and danger.
 
“I like to adapt my painting style to the subject matter. I can paint stylistic portraits using a muted palette to express inner turmoil or mix my media and go bold with the color. My painting process is similar to Warhol in that I start off photographing a subject. Then it becomes a multi-step process until I get to the final painting or mixed media image. It’s sort of like pottery: when you are making pottery it does not look very impressive. White glop really. Then you take some magic colored powders and manipulate shapes and throw it in the kiln… and what comes out is—Voila! Something colorful, unexpected and wonderful.

“I’ve heard people say that I’m one of the leaders of some new egalitarian, anti-art movement. I just do what makes my heart sing.”