Timothy Curtis

Timothy Curtis is a self-taught artist from Philadelphia who works in New York City.

Curtis was first introduced to the arts via graffiti writing as a young child in Philadelphia. Later, while serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence, he immersed himself in the study of art history, drawing, and painting. He emerged from the prison system with a fully formed artistic vision and distinctive style, through which he established a focused studio practice in late 2015.

A graffiti writer as a teenager, this art form has continued to influence his studio practice today. While his graphic use of line and vibrant color appear both decorative and aesthetically joyful, beneath their initial appeal there is more. His practice is the natural continuation of a rich artistic tradition from the region of his birth. Aside from the Philadelphia graffiti that he was surrounded by at a young age, Curtis has also started to recognize another artistic influence on his work, that of the Pennsylvania stoneware of the 1860s. Like the distinctive and regionally specific graffiti of 1970s Pennsylvania, the stoneware of that same region also maintains a visually unique and iconic imagery within the medium.

Curtis has gone on to have solo presentations in Tokyo, New York City, Berlin and Paris and was included in the 2019 group exhibition The Pencil is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists, at The Drawing Center in New York City. He was included in the 2022 exhibit Negotiating Grids at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and in 2023 at Beyond the Streets London at Saatchi Gallery. Recently Curtis was included in The Echo of Picasso at Museo Picasso Malaga, Spain 2024 and The Painters’ Hands at The Current in Stowe, Vermont January 2025.

Curtis is set to present a solo exhibition at Almine Rech (UES) New York City in September 2025.

For further inquiries contact

studio@timothycurtisart.com