At 14 He Was Arrested for His Art—Years Later, the Smithsonian Called - Newsweek

Devon Rodriguez, 30, is an emerging big shot in the art world. With an accolade from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and a memoir under his belt, he regularly sits down to sketch household names like Jennifer Lopez and Robert De Niro for an audience of over 40 million followers online.

Yet, every time he picks up a pencil, he is reminded of the harsh circumstances he grew up in—and an arrest at just 14—that led him down this unique path. Though he wants fans of his art to know childhood circumstances do not have to determine where people end up, he also does not want people to characterize him as a "perfect," squeaky-clean, rags-to-riches success story.

Rodriguez, now skilled in portrait paintings, was born in the South Bronx, to a family struggling financially in a deprived part of the city. He has described his childhood as being marked by an abusive mother and a largely absent father, circumstances that shaped much of his early years.

He turned to art as an escape, finding inspiration in the art form he was surrounded by—graffiti. But after getting confident with canisters, he was quickly arrested for vandalism. Despite "young offenders" being thought of as having a heightened risk for future crime, Rodriguez decided to take what had landed him in that position and move forward.

"After the arrest for vandalism, I began taking art more seriously and shifted toward portraiture," Rodriguez told Newsweek.

Today, he is a visual artist and content creator known for painting the people he encounters in everyday life—most famously, strangers he meets while riding the subway. For years, he documented those encounters online, under @devonrodriguezart, after which he rose to fame.

Rodriguez's path to acclaim was neither instant nor straightforward.

He grew up navigating difficult family dynamics, a home life he has said fueled his early pull toward the streets. His first brushes with art were also his first brushes with the law, as a teenager tagging the same city blocks he was raised in.

The arrest, however, became an unlikely turning point.

"I was initially rejected from the High School of Art and Design, but with encouragement and persistence I eventually earned my way in, graduating in 2014," he said. "I continued studying art and developing my work, including at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), and later received recognition from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, becoming an Outwin finalist in 2019."

That recognition marked a dramatic shift for a kid who had once been rejected from the very art school that would go on to shape his craft.

To his surprise, it was the hustle and bustle of New York's subway that became Rodriguez's true classroom.

"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."

In 2020, amid the isolation and upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rodriguez began filming those subway sessions—drawing strangers, then surprising them with the finished portraits and capturing their reactions.

"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."

The viral fame that followed brought a solo exhibition, international travel, media appearances and a growing audience of followers across nearly every social media platform who keenly watched him turn oblivious commuters into art.

His subjects have since expanded well beyond the subway.

Rodriguez has met and drawn portraits of Oprah Winfrey and former President Joe Biden and has collaborated with Italian fashion house Armani. But Rodriguez insists this glossy version of his life visible in a 30-second reel is incomplete.

"There were also personal struggles and lessons that weren't visible in those videos," he said. "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."

That memoir, titled Work in Progress, will soon be available to the public. Its title, Rodriguez said, carries a double meaning.

"As an artist, every drawing starts unfinished and develops layer by layer, and I've come to see my life the same way," he said. "I'm still a work in progress."

"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."

Rodriguez wants his fans to take away his message of possibility, without illusions of a tidy resolution.

"I want to be open about my mistakes, contradictions, ambition, and the things I'm still figuring out," he said. "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."