Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick is the type of colorful character that is welcome fodder for arts writers. In an art world overrun with degree-toting professionals who nip and tuck their way into stable careers while dreaming of blue-chip status, Fitzpatrick is a larger-than-life figure more at home in the Cedar Tavern than Sotheby’s. A self-taught artist, poet and playwright, former boxer and tattoo artist, he likes to hang out in seedy parts of town, keep company with the homeless and riff on art, literature, music and politics; he’s quick with an opinion and seems to relish a verbal brawl. All of which makes for a good story. It also helps that his art packs a punch.
Read our review of Fitzpatrick’s etchings, now on view at Salt Lake’s Kayo Gallery, in the December 2011 edition of 15 Bytes.
