16 OCTOBER 2026

Things are usually pretty bleak for people involved in crime from an early age. They often become repeat offenders, and even if they can avoid jail, typically have difficult lives and are more of a burden than a benefit to society. This is especially true for young men with absent fathers.

For a while it looked as though this was where Devon Rodriguez was headed. Born in the South Bronx in 1996, he started doing graffiti when he was just eight years old. At 14, he was arrested for vandalism, and this proved to be a turning point in his life. Would he continue on this path and become another statistic or would he use this as a wake-up call?

Rodriguez grew up in a poor family in poor part of New York City. Raised by an abusive mother, he was placed with his grandmother when he was 12. By that time, his father, Carlos, had been out of the picture for years, but Rodriguez ended up tracking him down in Miami. Here he tells a crazy story of how he found him and their reconnection that ultimately ended with Carlos’ death.

“I’m glad I met him before he died and I [would have continued thinking], ‘Damn, what would it have been if I would have met him?’” Rodriguez said. “So, yeah, I’m glad I met him. And I’m glad he didn’t raise me, because if I was raised by that guy I think I would be different.”

Rodriguez used art as an escape from his chaotic situation, and he became a talented graffiti artist. The talent went to his head, however. “I was so cocky about my art,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m a beast. I could just go tag this spot at three in the morning and I could do this whole wall without getting caught. I could do all this. I’m so good at art.’”

Instead of his work getting him into the High School of Art and Design as Rodriguez hoped, it got him arrested. It was then that he began to take art more seriously, and he decided to swap spray cans for pencils and brushes and focus on portraiture. Eventually he did get into the High School of Art and Design, and he later attended the Fashion Institute of Technology for a time.

For most New Yorkers, the subway is just a means of transportation. A cramped and often smelly mode of getting around the city. But for Rodriguez, it became a living studio. Taking the No. 6 train from the Bronx to school in Manhattan, he began using his fellow riders as subjects for his work.

“It became a huge part of my education as an artist," he said. "I would spend hours riding trains and drawing strangers because it was one of the best places to study people from life.”

Rodriguez would also go up to random people on the street and ask to draw them. Many of these encounters were filmed, and the reactions of these spontaneous models when they saw the results were often very charming. You can see many examples here. It was these interactions that brought Rodriguez a lot of attention.

“Those videos exploded on social media and transformed my life and career,” he said. “Suddenly, something I was doing quietly since childhood was being seen by millions of people.”

Rodriguez didn’t just become an internet star with a lot of followers. Celebrities began reaching out to him so he could draw them. This includes Jennifer Lopez, Colin Farrell, and Oprah Winfrey. In 2022, he got a call from the White House, as President Joe Biden also wanted to be sketched.

In addition, Rodriguez has received acclaim from prestigious institutions, and he has twice been a finalist in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. He recently won the Roswitha Haftmann Prize, which is Europe's largest monetary art award. Rodriguez has also been recognized as a top creator by Forbes and Time magazines.

While Rodriguez’s rise may seem like it was quick and easy, he wants people to know that looks can be deceiving, and this is why he decided to write a memoir entitled Work in Progress. While most people know him through those fun and light-hearted videos, he says behind the scenes there were struggles and hard lessons.

“That contrast between the public success and the much more complicated person and history behind it is a major reason I wanted to write a memoir,” he said. “I wanted to explore what happened internally as my life changed so quickly, my hunger for recognition, my relationship with success, and the realization that achieving things you once dreamed about doesn't automatically resolve everything you carried with you from childhood.”

In the book, Rodriguez doesn’t gloss over his mistakes, and he hopes his story can be an inspiration to others.

“If someone who feels overlooked, underestimated, or stuck reads about my story and comes away believing that their life is still being drawn, that they can keep working on it and change its direction, then it has accomplished what I wanted it to.”

How was this issue?

One tap is all it takes.