Artist, Ivan Quiñones II is an concepts man. Final yr, he had an concept to current artwork as a trend runway present. In March 2024 he executed the venture, named it SEIZE, and designed it to imitate a high-stakes artwork heist. The present opened with alarms, flashing lights, and a service announcement warning of a safety breach. The fashions rushed out, clad in black with masks and flashlights. They remained in character for your complete manufacturing, flaunting their canvas spoils to a offered out viewers.
SEIZE was staged at 40 Howard Avenue – an 180,000 SF industrial constructing serving artisans and small companies within the coronary heart of Pontiac, MI. On the prime of 2025, the manufacturing returned for an encore efficiency, even higher than the yr earlier than. What an thrilling option to kick off the brand new yr and have interaction with artwork!
SEIZE options round twenty artists of all sorts of work – from portraiture and figurative work, to summary, surrealism, graffiti artwork, digital, combined media and sculpture. The occasion’s music has been curated by DJ Coronary heart & Soul with native sponsors and distributors together with Massive Star Occasions, Coated In Cake, and Typsy Lotus. After the runway present, a pop-up exhibition magically seems in an adjoining house, giving visitors a chance to stand up near the work, meet the artists, and even choose up items so as to add to their collections.
Quiñones, whose profession shot into excessive gear when he created and offered a combined media portray of Kyrie Irving in 2023, delved into trend within the early 2000s, collaborating then with seamstresses to evolve his concepts from paper to the runway. When requested how he got here up with SEIZE, “I’m all the time attempting to think about one thing totally different,” he mentioned. “I used to be on the studio one evening and was identical to, wouldn’t or not it’s dope to have artwork on runways, like trend? That’s mainly the place the concept got here from – from me doing trend reveals again within the day and artwork reveals as of latest, and merging the 2 collectively to current one thing totally different.”
Situated within the Howard Avenue constructing, El Piqasso Studio is the place Ivan brainstorms, creates, and affords workshops and packages for artists, youth and neighborhood. A Pontiac native, he admits he needed to go away metropolis for a couple of years and return to acknowledge the its intrinsic cultural worth. Whereas many noticed Pontiac as a spot they wanted go away in an effort to thrive creatively, Ivan now leans into its limitless potentialities and homegrown expertise. “Rising up, we had the humanities and music festivals and concert events across the metropolis – these are among the finest reminiscences I had rising up right here in Pontiac. So now, coming again and seeing, you understand, virtually like this clear slate, there’s room not solely to recreate its arts scene, but in addition to construct upon it with some fairly distinctive, totally different stuff.”
Along with his personal work as an exhibiting artist, Quiñones is a member of the Pontiac Arts Fee, and the latest recipient of a beneficiant ARPA Fund Grant which helps his opening of the El Piqasso Artwork Café & Gallery in Downtown Pontiac this Spring. Search for SEIZE 3 later this season: The artwork heist is on its option to Detroit with an ever-expanding roster.
