Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Bono.
Sean, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up making things. Drawing, building, figuring out how objects and surfaces worked. By the time I was eighteen I had dropped out and found my way into the art world in New York, not through school, but through the street. I was doing work out of Deitch Projects, absorbing everything I could from that era of downtown Manhattan.
In 2001, four days before 9/11, I threw the first Art Battle on a vacant lot on Houston Street. I didn’t have a name for what I was building. I just knew that painting in front of people, live, under pressure, created something that galleries couldn’t replicate. That event became a movement. Over the next decade Art Battle spread across Europe, Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Madrid, and eventually became a format that other people were running in cities I had never visited.
At the same time I built BonoPaints, a hand-painted advertising agency. While the rest of the industry went digital I went the other direction. Getting brands like Nike, Asics, Corona, and Hoka to put brushes on walls instead of pixels on screens. That work took me from Venice Beach to Jacksonville Beach, where I’m based now.
Twenty-five years in, I’m still painting live. The same instinct that started on a Houston Street lot in 2001 is still driving the work.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No. Not even close.
I started Art Battle four days before 9/11. The city I had built that first event for was gone overnight. The lot on Houston Street, the energy of that moment, all of it got swallowed by something none of us had words for yet. I kept going anyway because I didn’t know what else to do.
The financial reality of being an independent artist is something people romanticize from the outside. The inside looks different. There were long stretches where the work was real but the money wasn’t. You figure out how to keep moving. You take the commercial job to fund the thing you actually care about. You get good at not needing much.
The hardest part though was watching something I created grow into something bigger than me and not always being in the room when it mattered. Art Battle spread to cities and countries I had never been to. Other people were running events under a name I came up with on a vacant lot in Manhattan. That is a strange thing to sit with. Pride and grief at the same time.
I don’t say any of this to complain. The struggle is part of it. You learn to carry it and keep going, and eventually the work speaks for itself.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a muralist, sculptor, and live performance artist. I paint at architectural scale, I carve wood, and I have spent twenty-five years performing the act of making in front of audiences. That last part is what ties everything together. The live element is not a gimmick. It is the whole point.
Through BonoPaints I work with brands who want something real on their walls. Nike, Asics, Hoka, Corona. Hand-painted work that a person can stand in front of and feel the difference between that and a vinyl wrap. There is a market for that and I have spent years proving it.
I am also known for founding Art Battle, a live competitive painting format that started in Manhattan and eventually spread across Europe and beyond. That work lives at the intersection of sport and art, performance and craft.
What am I most proud of? Honestly, all of it taken together. The commercial work funds the artistic practice. The artistic practice keeps the commercial work honest. The live performances connect both of them to something larger. Every wall I have painted, every sculpture I have carved, every event I have produced, it all adds up to a body of work I believe in. That is not something you can manufacture. You either put real work into the world or you don’t.
What sets me apart is that I am not bound by medium or scale. A hand-painted storefront and a building-sized mural are the same problem to me. I can work at any level of production and the quality of the thinking doesn’t change with the size of the job.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Tim Ferriss is probably my most consistent resource. I listen to his podcast while I work. Something about the way he structures conversations, always pushing toward process and mastery, speaks to the way I think about craft. He interviews people who are the best at what they do and he asks the questions most interviewers are afraid to ask.
When the conversation gets to be too much I switch to music. I’ll go from country to hip hop without thinking twice about it. The genre doesn’t matter. I just need the right energy for where the work is.
I am an avid reader and writer. Right now I am finishing East of Eden by Steinbeck. That book has a way of making you think about legacy and what a person leaves behind, which is not a bad thing to sit with when you spend your days making things meant to outlast you.
Pricing:
- Every project is different in scope, scale, and material so pricing is always custom. Reach out directly through bonopaints.com to start a conversation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.bonopaints.com
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/bonopaints
