My friend Eoghann—tattoo wizard, Scottish heartthrob, and owner of the world’s most trustworthy mustache.

One of my first memories of photography isn’t from a camera—it’s from a book my old man was thumbing through about Nicolas de Staël. There was this black-and-white portrait by Denise Colomb—Staël standing in his studio, brooding like a storm cloud. I remember thinking, “That’s it. That’s the thing. I want in.”

Not the gallery walls. Not the openings with bad white wine. The mess. The solitude. The splatter on the floor and the madness in the air.

My first gig in New York was a late-night studio visit with Alfredo Martinez (RIP) for Mass Appeal—the guy who had been in jail for faking Basquiats. The Redhook studio looked like a bunker. He offered me a warm beer and kept painting like nothing mattered. I left with paint on my shoes and a feeling I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Since then, I never really stopped. These past few years, that impulse became something more. Galleries like Pace, Hauser & Wirth, and Lehmann Maupin started inviting me in to photograph their artists at work—quiet moments of focus, rituals, repetition, the strange chaos of creation in progress. 

I finally pulled together a proper selection of these artist studio visits. Check it out!
http://www.axeldupeux.com/studiovisits

My friend Robert Nava allowed me to stop by while he was installing his show at Pace gallery and snap a few photos.

The softness on my good friend Nicco on a bleak Tuesday morning.

Real estate developer and Art collector Sam Charney at his LIC office.

Joanne podell is the vice chairman of Real estate powerhouse Cushman & Wakefield

Willow on Greene st.

After a couple of years hiatus, I went back in the streets of Bushwick this summer.

Here are a few people I was lucky to meet.

See the full project here

Syed on Greene and Knickerbocker

Gisele on Menahan st

Neicha on Harman st

Leo, Wyckoff ave