Soon after his crowd-stopping mosaics in the Bedford L train station in Williamsburg were unveiled, we caught up with the artist in his Brooklyn studio.
Marcel Dzama has established himself as a fixture of New York City—literally. Last year, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) commissioned him to transform the surrealist, dreamy worlds he typically paints or draws into a mosaic that is now permanent installed in the Bedford L train subway station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The pieces, collectively titled No Less Than Everything Comes Together (2021), inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”, have been stopping commuters in their tracks with their lush colors and striking depictions of dancing mimes and a laughing moon. The Canadian-born, Brooklyn-based artist has since been back in the studio, and Artnet decided to stop by to see what he’s dreaming up next.
What are the most indispensable items in your studio and why?
There are two. One is a paint brush that Raymond Pettibon introduced me to called a dagger brush—it holds a lot of paint but it drips down nicely to a point, so you don’t have to dip your brush constantly to get fresh paint onto the paper. It’s the only brush I like to use these days. The other is a pencil brand called Blackwing that has very soft lead. You don’t have to press that hard and it leaves a nice dark mark. They’re nicely designed and the black eraser on the end works rather well.