Hot Dog! A New NYC Scene From Jorge Colombo

Real talk: Coney Island doesn’t have the best beach. It doesn’t even have the best beach in the Big Apple. But damn it, it’s 100% pure NYC, and we love it. As a New York resident for just shy of twenty years, Jorge Colombo would definitely back us up on that.

At Coney Island, Brooklyn, there’s plenty to please local New Yorkers and entertain tourists alike. Cruise the boardwalk, crush a few concessions, down a boozy bev in an enormous plastic vessel, try your luck at some carnival games, and take a ride on the Cyclone roller coaster (bonus points for not concerning yourself with the coaster’s questionable safety).

Most importantly, consume the requisite hot dog (or six) at Nathan’s Famous. It’s like the 5th commandment of Coney Island. Colombo’s Coney Island, Brooklyn captures the illuminated pull of this palace of processed meat. The particular Nathan’s pictured in Colombo’s illustration—the original location, still operating—is basically a New York landmark. That he rendered it in black and white just drives home the timeless vibes of this storied NYC locale.

Colombo’s art and design career has spanned more than 30 years. He’s drawn to the urban landscape, producing most of his work on location, in the moment. It’s a nomadic creative process that’s perfectly fitted to the immediacy possible with portable digital tools, so it’s no surprise the artist transitioned to illustrating and painting via touch screen when the opportunity presented itself. When his work was featured on the cover of The New Yorker in 2009, it was touted as the first magazine cover ever created on a smartphone.

You can track the progression of technological advances in Colombo’s technique. His earlier works involved finger-painting on an iPhone, while today’s edition was created on an iPad with an Apple Pencil. The result is an image with greater precision than our other editions by the artist, which have an almost soft-focus feel. Viewing Coney Island, Brooklyn in the context of our Colombo collection, one can really appreciate the beauty of the artist’s evolving practice. As Colombo himself says, “being a beginner is far more interesting than being a veteran”.

With art for everyone,
Jen Bekman + Team 20x200