Captured: Darryl "13" Bennett

This month our captured artist is Mr. Darryl "13" Bennett a Washington DC native with blessed hands.

He was kind enough to let me pick his brain on his work so listen up:

What's you artistic outlook on life?

Nothing is written in stone, if your doing something in life that your not happy with never be afraid to start over or alter the original plan. Life's too good to just be going through the motions.

What's your favorite most inspirational place?
Right now I have to say Atlanta, GA, I took a trip down there a few years back for the grand opening of a popular tattoo shop/art gallery and I loved the creative energy Atlanta has to offer. I wouldn't mind checking out the west-coast, a lot of my favorite artist are over their.
 

Do you have a favorite piece from your collection of work? 

Its between these sneaker I painted for my home-girl called "TokyoThirteen Breezies" and a painting entitles "Shine". The sneakers were cool cause of the color, I didn't want to do too much so I just painted some blossom petals on the mesh panels. The shine painting because of the feel that she remains calm and strong even when things are dark and people try to pull you down.

 

 What's your most popular piece?

I get a great reply back when I paint my Tokyo girls, females tend to relate to the facial expression on the girls face or the situation. Ill see comments like "She is so pretty" or "She looks so sad but strong", I let people see what they see.

 

What is the message behind your work or does it vary from piece to piece? 

Life is what you make of it, I have a painting of a female headless but she has a look on her face that said "It was my choice". 

 

 What has helped to shape your artistic expression? 

Working at a tattoo shop (Pinz-n-Needlez Tattoo), I got to meet a lot of other awesome artist that I might not have had to chance meet otherwise. I learned a lot of techniques and art business, it also taught me how much I didn't know about myself as an artist. One of the artist at the shop (Yasin R.I.P), put me on to art magazines like Juxtapoz, Hi Fructose and other artist I knew nothing about. He always got me into watercolors.
 

As an artist do you believe creativity is innate? 

I think so, everybody cant think outside the box or be able to build something from nothing..that true creativity, you have to be born with it!
 

What goals do you have for your work?
I'm really into branding these days..I like to see my art outside of a canvas, I've done T-shirts, sneakers, I'm currently doing hand painted earrings, I'm working with video and want to do some films. My ultimate goal would be to inspire others and live off of my art.

 

Last Words?
I want to shout out Nkenge, IKB, Uptown Kelly, Pinz-n-Needlez Tattoos, Amari, Mel, Kevin, Dent, Yas, Ronnie, Jason at Stamp Magazine and Icy Grape Incident......SUPPORT ART!

Darryl is currently a contributor to Stamp Magazine Online and has been the artist feature in art culture blogs and mine lol. In 2007, Darryl Bennett created TokyoThirteen Arts. ToykoThirteen Arts is a creative concept that produces t-shirts, photography, paintings and short films. In 2011, Darryl released his first line of t-shirts for TokyoThirteen Propaganda, a division of TokyoThirteen Arts. The basic principle behind Darryl’s art is that there is no good or bad, right or wrong; limits are to be pushed and there’s always a need for new, weird, and better.

Darryl "13" Bennett

TokyoThirteen ARTS
Washington, DC
tokyoxiii@gmail.com

follow him @DarthXIII