The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – 100 Paintings: An Artist’s Life in New York City by Rob Mango

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

100 Paintings: An Artist’s Life in New York City by Rob Mango https://www.robmango.com/100-paintings-an-artist-life-in-new-york https://www.amazon.com/100-Paintings-Artists-Life-York/dp/0692263136 Equal parts monograph and memoir, 100 Paintings: An Artist’s Life in New York City is one man’s artistic journey from his native Chicago to a pioneering residency in Manhattan’s storied neighborhood of Tribeca. Rob Mango, as much an athlete as an artist, has explored New York City on foot since 1977–its architecture and its denizens, its streets and its harbors providing the former track star with the inspiration for much of his highly individualistic work. As noted in the foreword by art critic Robert Mahoney, ”Mango’s paintings can be seen as being produced by a man whose body was fed oxygen to a fantastical high while running through the city.” With more than 200 full-color artworks and photographs, this book documents Mango’s journey and the body of work he has created over the past four-plus decades. From the birth of Tribeca to the horrors of 9/11 and its aftermath, Mango reveals the details as only such a singular artist can. Along the way, he rubs shoulders with Wall Street titans, the art world’s up-and-comers, punk rockers, and such celebrated downtowners as Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers and Bob Dylan. A central hub of Tribeca was the Neo Persona Gallery, which Mango founded in 1984 to represent and exhibit the work of the neighborhood’s burgeoning art scene. Mango’s diverse body of work, depicted here, includes vividly imagined, surreal meditations on the artist in the city and abroad, animated by figures from his personal mythology. Drawings, assemblages, sculptures, paintings, and groundbreaking painted-sculptural hybrid works, from 1975 2014, represent Mango’s entire life as an artist, including stints in the Midwest, New Mexico, Paris, Prague, Venice, and Tuscany. Featured in this retrospective are a series of epic, large-scale paintings set in a fantastic New York, replete with the city’s iconic architectural landmarks, but populated by gods, warriors, shamans, and other figures drawn from many epochs and cultures. Also here are portraits of the famous and infamous, pastoral scenes from a rural Tuscan village, and Mango’s breathtaking series of nudes. About the author Interview originally published in Du Jour, Oct 21, 2014. What brought you to New York City in the ’70s, and how did the city influence you and your artwork? I quickly became aware that the center of the art universe was New York City. The fantasy of coming to [the city] and becoming part of it was launched by painters I encountered while roaming the halls of the Art Institute of Chicago as a teen–Rivers, Johns, DeKooning and Rauschenberg. My obsession with New York became so highly evolved that it sustained me long after I arrived. In many ways, the fantasy of New York exceeded the actual experience initially, which was, in a word, cruel. My Midwestern fantasy of New York sustained the creation of numerous major works, which blend realistic detail and imaginative or surreal invention, particularly “Millennium” and “Return to the City.”

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. This is Voss here from thecrisvoss Show.com. Lais, young on there, and these things that makes official. Welcome to the show. As always with the Chris Voss show for over 16 years and 2,800 episodes. We've been bringing the Chris Voss show because we care.

We love our audience. We think you guys are great and just the most amazing folks in the world. And we're one of the oldest still living broadcasting podcasts on a daily basis. I don't think anyone's doing daily anymore, and there's like a handful of us left. So please support the show. Go to goodrease.com, forechess, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, forechess Christchisvoss, Chris Foss won the TikTokity and all those crazy places on the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show.

Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, we're going to be talking about his artwork. We're getting into the art. I love art. Art's amazing. It's amazing, the human expression. and hope that comes through art and sometimes the messaging and maybe teaching us something about ourselves he's the author of the latest book that came out december 2nd 2014 100 paintings

an artist life in new york city by rob mango he joins us on the show we're going to be talking to him about some of his insights his experience in his wonderful art that he shares in a book he is an artist who approaches his work as a process of discovery and rather becoming then a fixed and grounded in classical foundations shaped by wide-ranging influences, New York City itself, literature, philosophy, psychology, he continually pushes the boundaries of visual language, resisting the gilded cage of a recognizable brand in favor of perpetual reinvention. He imbuses paintings with a signature fealty to the transformation of desire, emotion, and intuition into kinetic conversations with the viewer, exploring ever new.

intersections of thought and form. Welcome to the show, Rob. How are you? Hey, I'm great. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you so much for invitation. Thanks for coming. We're really happy to have you as well. Give us dot com's websites, social media. Where do you want people to find out more about you on the internet, sir? Rob mango.com is, it's an ever-changing tableau of my work, and I'm pretty active on Instagram, Rob Mango underscore artist. But listen, Chris, that, that description that you gave of me a few minutes ago, that was scary, accurate. That is from the PR agency.

Wow. Somebody over there figured me out. That's really awesome. You know, now you're going to have to change again. So give us $30,000 overview. What's inside your book? What's inside of my book? You know, it says 100 paintings, but there's actually more than that.

It's 100 paintings and artist's life in New York City. and I just decided to call it what it was. I wrote it and assembled it first and named it later. So I selected the paintings that were kind of more definitive and formative of me since I've been here in New York. And it's an ever-changing place, let me tell you. And I'm a changing guy, but my paintings of New York are, in some people's opinion, my best works.

They're very accurate in description and descriptive. And when you paint New York, you kind of have to paint every window. You know, when you paint a building, if you don't sort of man up to the detail involved in painting the Chrysler building, which I painted half a dozen times, you know, I have that engineering background

because that's what I did when I was a kid before I made a buck as an artist. I was a draftsman engineer, designer, and, you know, the architectural landscape of New York kind of fell right, very natural to me, but the city is inhabited by avatars and gods and entities, which you walk the streets of my imagination more than the city itself. So these are 100 features or features of 100 of your personal artworks that you've created.

Yeah, they're all my paintings. And, you know, listen, when I came to New York, the only friend I had here was an ex-girlfriend, and she turned out to be pretty temporary. And so I worked as a night watchman, a carpenter. It turned into be a really good carpenter. And I started refurbishing lofts in Tribeca, which is a downtown neighborhood in Manhattan, and turning them into luxury lofts.

And I worked for various developers. And then the people who moved into these lofts were usually Wall Street or lawyers or, you know, downtown used to be really rough. and it was becoming gentrified. These people then would buy my pictures, and this is kind of how things got rolling for me. This is over about a 10-year period. And a lot of times the Wall Street guys got so excited about my work

that they started buying them for their offices. Oh, wow. You know, and now we're getting into the late 80s, and I had some trading floors in the Wall Street area that had 10, 15, 20 paintings of mine. So those guys kept me a lot. live and that kind of kicked it off. That's cool.

Yeah, that's kind of how it happened. That's cool. So tell us about your paintings. I mean, I see that some are like three-dimensional. There's two behind you if those were trying YouTube. Are they all three-dimensional like that? No, we're not all three-dimensional. I really try to diversify between flat oil painting and these sculptor pieces, which, I mean, I

invented it. I have this itch in me to see 2D and 3D at the same time. And so some of these pictures are low relief, we call that. Like the piece right here, a famous American Olympian named Tanya Buford Bailey. She made three. That's beautiful. Thank you. I love the three-dimensional nature of it.

It really stands out. Thank you. Thank you. Some people love it. Some people are worried that, you know, know, it's going to, you know, collect us. Jump out of the, jump out of the painting. And then there's the one on the right of you that's, is that kind of heading to fish?

That's enough, that's a boy girl picture. That's based on two models, actually, I had. And, you know, but I have interacted it in color and quite a bit. That's 3D also. It's, I love dance and I get a lot of inspiration. As a matter of fact, I love moving subjects. And movement is inherent. to my paintings. I think the audience

maybe goes into a painting because they're trying to escape their own space, their own world. And when the picture is moving, it allows them to do that. I see that now in your paintings. I've got a, there's a camera on my screen with the cable going across the one

on the right. So now I can see it. I've kind of moved a little bit. And yeah, I mean, the runner has got that flow. So you like to capture the movement. I do. I'm real partial to running. I mean, I've been commissioned to paint 10 Olympians by the University of Illinois where they all went to school. Olympians and legends.

There's a couple of NFL football players, too. I'm working on a painting of Dick Buckus right now, a famous linebacker for this. Oh, yeah. Chicago Bears to Bears. He was an Illinois grad. And I, you know, listen, I missed making an Olympic team myself by a foot. Really? In 1970, I was a junior in college, a little young.

I was a half-miler. And the following year, 73, I did win the NCAAs in the half-mile. Oh, no. And narrowly miss beating the Olympic champion from the year before Dave Waddle. But, I mean, I think painting these Olympians is just an itch, a desire that's lingered in me. So it's been a great series, a fun series. They're going to exhibit the state of Illinois. in the fall. You can almost say, and I don't believe in meant to bees, but I believe in the development

and growth of an artist, whether you're in business. I mean, I consider myself a business artist. I also consider myself an artist of the camera. And it's interesting to me how the human stasis, the human being evolves through its art. And we're all kind of artists. I don't know. I'm just kind of improvving this as I go along, but this is kind of coming to me. as a bit of as a bit of feed. Would you say that we're all kind of artists? We're all kind of human beings, you know, being human beings being? I think childhood is a natural state of art and creativity.

You know, children are gifted with one set of talents or another, sometimes multiple talents. So they're forced to make a choice. and they do but you know there's nothing like kids art it's just so incredibly free and and different

and I'm so simulated by the work of children particularly my grandkids and yeah I agree with you that that creativity lurks in a human being yeah and it's development you know I when I really think about it

a lot of my art this is kind of just an epiphany I had I think that was a word I was looking for earlier I just had an epiphany talking to you And this is why I love this show. I learned stuff. Sometimes I may learn more than in the audience. But the epiphany was, is we're all artists as human beings. We're all painting our life.

You know, one of the things we say on the Chris Foss show, it's my quote, stories are the fabric of our lives. They're the things that make us. They're things that find us together. I mean, if you took away all my stories, I'd be the most boringest person in the world. I probably already am, according to my dates. But, no, we're.

But no, we're this evolving, developing, for some of us we're developing. I don't know about the people on Twitter, but we're this developing people. And hopefully we grow and we change. I think that's what you've gone a lot through. Let's go to your childhood. And that's that peak of imagination before we become these tainted, I don't know, bitter, angry adults that kind of closes off our imagination. Tell us about your first experience of when you, you know, started realizing maybe this art thing was a thing for you, an outlet for you.

I started making clay models of World War II airplanes when I was about six or seven years old. Oh, wow. Yeah. And, you know, out of clay, you know, I mean, we were, I would say, lower middle class. And clay was something that was cheap and the great kids started. Was there anything that inspired you to do that or just come natural? Was there any maybe artists or influenced something you saw? I had four uncles that all served in World War II or the Korean War.

And I don't know, just a kind of respect for everything military. And my father was in the Navy. And so that kind of launched it. But, you know, the first time I visited the Art Institute of Chicago, the painter woke up in me. And I'm now 12, 14 years old, 13. and I went back home and I painted, reproduced the works of the impressionist, the French impressionist, with kind of scary accuracy. And those paintings ended up getting distributed to the homes of all my family members.

Wow. And they still hang. That is awesome. What a testament. It's kind of how it started. But, and, you know, the art institute, had a college associated with it, and the teachers there kind of were told about this kid that was painting all the pictures in the museum, and he was 14 years old.

And so he invited me to come take classes for free. I was like a sponge. You know, I just, you know, to tell you the truth, I pretty soon, I was better than the teachers. And I actually ended up teaching some classes myself. Wow. And now in high school. So you were an early prodigy. Yeah, it was always.

always there. But, you know, I had a mechanical sense, too. My father was a designer, and I worked for him and with him. I worked for all my uncles who were in the trades. And so the combination between dimensional things and painterly things kind of merged then. And I only really have come to grips with that in recent years to realize that these two elements are always swimming together. But what you were saying earlier, Chris, about people and we're all being artists, you know, I see the world through the audience's eyes. I mean, I never lose myself. I like to know what makes people tick and, you know, what their needs are and what they want from art, you know, and what painting and sculpture is now so much different than what it was, like in the 19th century when those impressionist paintings

that I copied were done, you know? Before, there was no digital media, there was no television. know, photography was minimal. But now the needs of people are so diversified. And an artist has to kind of, I think, meet the challenge of contemporary consciousness in the audience. And, you know, I do that, which is part of the reason why my work is somewhat diverse. And look, I understand branding. And, but, you know, branding to me, as it applies to what I do, is, I don't systematize my approach.

I think that's the opposite of genius. I think, you know, and I mean, I learned from the great neoclassic masters and the impressionists. But I bring that back through an American imagination. And I'll tell you, I have my own gallery in Tribeca, and it's a ground floor space. People walk in here, and I see their eyes, you know. There's a need there. and I try to understand that need through them. Why is art so important or in the format, whether it's speaking in the terms of you are,

you know, you talked about contemporary and why people really, when they see your art and they see art, they tend to light up or it tends to have an effect on them. What does that affect? And why is that important to us as human beings? That's a brilliant question, Chris. That's why they have a podcast. You hit a home run with that. I think that the nature of contemporary life is so confining, demanding, and difficult, really.

I mean, you know, the current generation, it's like they're kind of coming to grips with economic factors and changing industries and AI and, you know, art, which is from the heart and from the soul and from the essence of feeling is not. not that. And so the need for it, a place to go where, you know, the human experience, the deeper level of experience, not all those contemporary elements that I just mentioned exist. So I think the need that people have, as you question, is just to find that source, that thing that's not the worrisome, bothersome world. Yeah. You know, I'll tell you a story. When I was growing up, I was raised in an oppressive religious cult. And I'll give you a hint.

It's in Utah. And very early on, I was shamed and scolded and scurried about, you know, the naked body and how evil it was. And, you know, people like Hugh Hefner were evil who celebrated the human form or the female form. And I was just indoctrarying with that. I mean, I was a child. I didn't, you know, I didn't know any better. But, you know, nudity is evil. Sex is, you know, only for procreation, you know, and, you know, porn is completely evil.

You know, Hugh Hefter was coming up at the time and the Plainway magazine, oh, that's evil. People, you know, sex was just the face of it rated as evil. And there was this gentleman that was on my street in California and he had this huge, beautiful lot. and his first name was art. It was kind of funny. And I don't know if that was his segue. I'd love to interview him today. But as a child, I was mowing lawns and doing everything.

And back then, you just wander people's properties, wander all over. You know, you drink out of the front hose for some reason. You could just violate people's property. Go on it, drink out of the hose. You know, or Gen X, right? And he had this beautiful state. And so I think I was talking to him about mowing his lawns or something. He needed to care.

and then he had this crazy, just wild property. It was beautiful. But he had this studio behind his house, and he would sculpt, lit with clay and other materials, I suppose. I'm not a sculptor, so don't sue me, folks. Don't write me. But he would do these beautiful statues. Some were small, some were like almost life size.

And he would have, he, and it would be of the female form. And usually some variation of nudity, you know, they'd have be wrapped in some sort of you know and a lot of them kind of like those old roman you know the david and some of those old sort of sculptures and i remember going into studio and by then i became friends with him and he had all these cool little cars he was working on and so i just come up hang with him and i remember seeing the sculptures and i was like oh that's bad i've been told that's bad that woman's new you have people come here and he goes yeah chris there's women that come and they model for me and and they're new and I'm like really and so I kind of gave him the rundown of what I

thought you know was the way I've been doctoring with and he sent down with me he's really wonderful and he said he said no Chris this is this is the human form this is natural this is you know this is something that isn't dirty it's not filthy this is beautiful I mean and any kind of really realign my things thinking about the the beautification of the human form and celebrating femininity, celebrating women. You know, I mean, they're beauty. I mean, men, you know, we built whole worlds and governments and standards. And we believe it with the whole world to be safe for women because we appreciate their beauty

and value the womb and what that beauty brings to the propagation of the species. You know, we're all designed for that. And he really changed me up. And thank God he did, because Jesus, I was freaking sold a load of bullshit. And so now I just have this wonderful appreciation of art, value of the human form, the human beings, you know, the hope that we have or the endurance, our failures in life. And art captures so much that in an imaginative sense. So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. If you have any thoughts on that, Rob?

Yeah, your experience as a child, wow, there's a short story to be written in there, Chris. You need to do that. You know, different species of animals and in many species of animals, the male is the visually dominant gender. Men are the romantics. Look at the peacocks. I mean, but in the human species, species, it's women that are visually dynamic and want to be seen and sort of present themselves that way. And there's kind of an imperative for a woman as a young girl to be beautiful.

And methodology of beauty is proliferated from a very young age. And they're successful at it. They are beautiful. And so the other gender, us, we're kind of the audience, that. And, you know, it's been that way in art since the very first piece of art ever recorded in history, which is most historians believe to be the Venus of Willendorf, which is a sculpture dating back to 7 or 800 BC. Oh, wow. And, you know, it was, it was only, it was only in the Renaissance that the, as driven by the Pope, that the female form became suppressed as, as a subject.

Back one movement to classical Greece, you know, women were visually dynamic and celebrated. There comes the Pope and the Renaissance, and great sculpture is the life of the saints and Jesus Christ. And they did it well, believe me. But then immediately after that, the neoclassic period, artists went, took the skills of the Renaissance, went back, and took the subject matter of the Greeks. And redid it, women got thrust back into art. I hope I'm not getting off your theme here. No, no, I think that builds on it. Nicely.

But the neoclassic painters and sculptors are my favorites. And, you know, I had an exhibition in Venice in 2023 that lasted for four months, Venice, Italy. And it was a great show. I got a lot of attention. It was so much fun. Galians are unbelievable. But during that show, I went to a side trip to Florence, and I went to, I went to Nicolangelo's

studio, which was in the basement of a chapel, at the Medici Chapel in Florence. And after he left the payroll of the Pope, and he was taken away by the Medici's, the wealthy family of Florence, he started sculpting women. And other than the Virgin Mary, there really weren't any women. and Michelangelo's repertoire of works. A few sculptures of women that he did that were in the basement in the Medici Chapel so stunned me that I was, my wife had to shake me. I was semi-conscious sitting on a bench.

They really changed me. So I came back to New York and I did a painting literally of myself in that studio of his with the two sculptures side by side. and it's on my website and I painted his sculptures so true to the way they really look it was a total eulogy

to him you know and I'm just taking that female subject idea years a little further within my own context so tell me to shut up if I say too much no no this is what you're here to we're here to hear from you and stuff and you built on that wonderfully

I'm looking at this Venus of Willendorf on the in the Wikipedia here. This is astounding. This is why I love the show. I learned stuff from every guest. The Venus figure made 30,000 years ago. Okay. Yeah.

I wanted to give a conservative date to it. Yeah. And its material is made of oolitic limestone, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yeah. Wow. That's extraordinary. That's the thing about sculptures.

It's got to last. And there's the proof of it. And it's got boobs. I can see it was definitely made by me. You put yourself in the artist. The name of the painting that I did, by the way, I'm trying to remember it, is, I can't, don't have it. But, you know, I mean, with that Venus of Willendorf and many sculptures after that, I, what was going on with the sculptor, you know?

Was it just like creating a goddess? The thing that drove him most was. was the adoration and love for a woman, of woman. So did that cause that sculpture to happen? You know, it's a fertility thing, too, you know. It's an appeal to the gods for a woman to give birth, I think. And that's in our nature, you know, propagation of species. Everything we do is about the propagation of species.

Pretty much everything a guy does is trying to just get laid, have a seed for children. Yeah. I'm looking through your artwork, and it goes back to 1970s. You've got it featured on your website here of your work. And it's kind of interesting to see the evolving nature of your art and some of the changes through it. It seems like it kind of changes almost on a decade basis. You know, that's true.

You know, I've been true to myself and the voice inside of me, which I think is a voice of a 15-year-old boy who is a very uncomfortable. compromising, you know, and I had a fabulous mother who at the kitchen table, she, when other kids were learning, you know, a very rudimentary thing, she was reading me poetry and introducing me to great poets and writers. And I, you know, so by the time I got to high school, I became very interested in philosophy. And I discovered Friedrich Nietzsche. And we wrote a book called The Will to System. And in the book, he put forth that the tendency to systematize your thought process

is antithetical to creativity. And I don't know, the lights just kind of went on in my brain. It's, yeah, you know, I mean, reinvention of both material and an idea. It's like you only have 80, 90 years to create. You know, that's just a grain in the hourglass. And I just am not going to waste a day, a year, much less a decade, of being boring, you know. And how much is there that can be invented? You might say, you know, what can man do?

Man can only do so much. I think I'm driven by the notion that the creative mind, the imagination, can just do things that you would never expect. And I stand in front of a blank canvas and I refuse to be the guy I was yesterday. I get out of bed no more and I come down. I have a kind of a thesis of not being the guy was yesterday. Now, obviously, I'm working on paintings that sometimes take as much as 10 years. And so I'm evolving the idea that caused the painting to happen. But I reinvent also. And that's a nice thing about these athletes is that, you know, there's a classicism to them, you know. It's, there's a Greek origin to the Olympians. And so it gives me a justifiable basis to embrace the

past, not just the future. I mean, I'm painting them in such a way like they've never been done before, but there's that historical basis or blend to them. And yeah, what's next? So can people hire you, commission you to do work for them if someone's out there listening to our conversation and they're like, I love more work on a commission basis and it's happened many times. These athletes are that. I mean, there's, you know, the audience and the collectors and stuff, there's one collector who, a very conservative guy, he was the CFO of the biggest companies in New York and the world, the Hearst Publishing. And he knew what he liked. And he saw one of my pictures that had been sold. This has happened a number of times.

And he said, Rob, can you do one? Can you do that for me? I love that painting. And so I did, you know. And when I did the original, like the girl upstairs modeled for it, and she doesn't even live here anymore. But so I did that. And the name of the picture is ballet.

I don't know if it's on the website or not. But then it's just crazy things happen. Then this guy that owns his own hedge fund saw that painting ballet and came to my studio with his wife, came back about three or four or five times and didn't find anything they liked, right? And then I was having an event here with there's 200 people and a band and cocktails and everything. And at the end of the night, he stayed the whole night. He said to me, Rob, do you have anything which is really uplifting? And I thought to myself, I had painted this picture of a Venetian carnival clown that I saw in Venice, Italy,

and it had this abstract, fluid, atmospheric background. And then I saw this clown, and I followed them, you know, and I took some photographs of them. And then I got back to New York, I did sketches of them. And I painted this picture called Ames. Miss in the Abyss. Wow. And a miss. I'm sorry. A miss in the abyss. Uh-huh. And the guy who wrote Smokey Robinson's tune Tears of the Clown was Smokey's

manager. And this guy, this manager saw this painting, walked in my gallery and he just had to have it. Bam, I sold it to him. He died. And he had the greatest clown collection in America. I mean, really? And my painting was the best picture he had. That's what he said. That's what his kids said. So he died and they had to liquidate this thing, this collection. They called me up rather than taking it to an auction. And I said, yeah, I'll buy it back. Wow. I bought it back. And I put it on my shelf. Now, we're back to the party. The guy says to me, Rob, if you got anything really uplifting, his name is Charlie Michaels and his wife Doris, the most beautiful people.

And Charlie had his own hedge fund, so, you know, he could write it sick. And I pulled it off the shelf and they both just dropped dead, right? Wow. They fucking loved it. Oh, sorry. That's okay. We let a few of those light on the show. They all that in their penhouse over Central Park.

And it's just so people saw it in that, it's setting in their central parties, friends of theirs parties, cocktail parties. now I'm doing paintings based on that picture for people in Zurich and two commissions out of Zurich. And that's kind of how it works for me. People see my paintings. It's a one-on-one thing. It's the work of art. It's the work that sells it, you know. Let me ask you this.

And so people can contact you through your website, your email, to find out maybe, you know, if they want to have something commissioned. Why do certain types of art, or maybe the content? content of that art, why do you feel that resonates deeply? Is there something maybe we're missing inside and that fills a hole? You mentioned that one of the gentlemen who's buying her pieces of art, he wanted something that was uplifting and happy, almost sounds like maybe he was trying to fill a bucket in himself, that maybe he was a little low. Why do you feel people, you know, like I love beautiful photographs, like a lot of black and white art. Some people like paintings. I like paintings, too. I can see the art in that. But, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm,

be more, you know, I might have a preference. And some people do. Like some people, the art is music. Some people, the art is, you know, some form or variation of painting or pictures, whether it's, you know, sketches or chalk or paint. What do you see when, you know, you've probably experienced that a lot with your customers, clients with, you know, why does certain things resonate with certain people in a certain way, maybe? Have you ever figured that one out? I think, yeah. I think the same most significant factor in this discussion is authenticity. And I mean, there's a belief and a hope that the audience, when they connect with a work of art, that the origins of that work of art are authentic.

They're not crass. They're not commercial. They're not. And there's a soul connection, which is better than this world. Can I take a risk and show you something? sure yeah this is another version of that carnival clown can you see it again wow so the demand for this picture was such that i've painted seven more of them and that this guy became my avatar and he he's got a paintbrush in every painting he's wielding the paintbrush

He's throwing it into the abyss. It comes the name Amiss in the Abyss. So this guy is this character, this avatar, this who, I would never want anybody to see my body. So I wear this costume, you know, this carnival clown. And he is the main character in this movie I was telling you about, which is being made of my paintings of New York. Oh, wow. Okay. He's, yeah, he comes, he's a time traveler.

He lands on 42nd Street in the early 1980s. And, you know, 42nd Street was a miserable, decadent mess at that point. It was handhandlers and drug dealers and prostitutes. And it was a mess. This is before Rudy Jr. That's Friday's around the Chris Vos show right there. But, yeah, you keep getting back to that question about why do people need art and are they filling a blank spot in their soul?

And Chris, yes, you know, and so am I. I'm a seeker. You know, I'm looking to fill that. spot. So I'm giving you solutions, models, images, ideas for that fulfillment, you know, and it's color, it's form, it's movement. And what we are talking about, Chris, pathos, you know, and you see it's in literature also. What was that term again? Pathos. Pathos. Pathos. Pathos. P-A-T-H-O-S? Yes. And it's a indefinable and e-effable substance, which is deep in the human soul. And, you know, it's the great writers

try to embody it, uncover it, display it, you know, whether it's Dostoevsky or T.S. Eliot or, you know, I mean, I've read everything by the guy who made the movie, the big sci-fi film, Andy Whale, you know, the sci-fi film is Hail Mary, right? Oh, okay. He's got three novels out, and I read each one of them on the day they were released, going back a couple of years. I kept telling everybody, this book, Hail Mary,

is just so incredible. It's going to, it would be a great movie, and now it's the biggest movie since E.T. But pathos, there's a need. I don't know if you've seen the movie or any of your viewers have,

but the need to, to know the alien, you know, and is the alien of good heart. This is what we want. This is what our heart wants. And so the notion of, that spot that's being filled hopefully by artists.

The audience wants authenticity from the artist. It wants the artist soul to be true. You know, and I've got to tell you something, there's so much crap in art, modern art in America. There's so many phonies and, you know, just they're just creating brands and the brands are shallow. And I'm sorry. I mean, you're describing the Chris Vosha brand right now.

I'm just kidding. I'm just being fun. But no, I mean, I, there's, you know, the madness that I go through in life and maybe some of that was reflecting your trust fund friends or not trust fund the fund folks. You know, we go through so much madness and, you know, everything is fixing problems and doing this. And I think that it's kind of another piffy I'm having. I find great peace in looking at art, especially like black. white photographic art. I just love that medium. And in some of the ways when it's presented well, or presented to my flavor, let's put it that way, because they're all done well. And is, I find peace in it. And it gives me, it gives me pause. It gives me a moment to think of gratitude, think about my life. And I think maybe what it all ties into is it harkens us back to that childhood imagination that we've lost as adults, many of us have lost. let's put it that way. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that,

to build them. I think you're defining repression. Uh-huh. Which is, if you give any credence to Freud and Jung, that life is a process of suppressing your true self, your true nature, because it's not sustainable in society, which is a group of individuals.

But it's interesting. You were saying that the black, and white, I think you mean photography, gives you a sense of peace. Yes. But earlier you were saying there is a need. So either the need is peace or there's different things in you that art can address. Possibly. And I think that, you know, human nature is not necessarily a simple thing.

And it's also changing in the course of anybody's life. So the needs change. And, you know, that's why that's why. that timeless work of art, whether it's sculpture, painting, or photography, is something we seek. Because the timeless thing is kind of the man for all seasons. You know, it's both peace and desire, and, you know, it quenches the thirst for the unknown, but it satisfies the fulfillment of the historical imperative that we have, of what happened before that we so love, but, you know, what we need in our apprehensions of the future.

Yeah, it kind of harkened me to this idea that maybe, maybe that's our loss. That's something that we bear, the losing our imagination of children, you know, and the stuff you've talked about, about how, you know, we just become these marching systems of bots, you know, that are afraid of our own uniqueness, individualists, or creativity, maybe. we're just, okay, well, let's do the work thing, do the college thing, do the, you know, go nine to five. I'm just this bot moving through world, doing what I'm supposed to do. And I think maybe there's a death inside of us, or maybe a loss, an empty bucket, if you, if I can call that back. And it's a wound that we miss from the loss of imagination as a childhood.

And I think that's maybe why we come back to art. Remember that movie Citizen Kane, where, It was all about Rosebud. It was about his, the one, and he collected, and he bought everything. He bought works of art. He bought all this stuff, and all of it was to fill that empty bucket of the loss of his imagination and his childhood. It wasn't about the sled. That's what it, in fact, I just said I had another epiphany.

It wasn't about the sled. It was about the loss of innocence. And I think that's the. death of us that we have inside of us that we harken back to and it brings back that childhood i don't know that's what i meant by the repression comment that repressing the the experience of childhood until it's just a little whimper you know and it was symbolized by and by rosebud and citizen king for sure yeah yeah what a great discussion on art we've had today i've had some wonderful epiphanies too we're on a great monday morning folks for the show of your family friends

relatives, damn it. This is what we do. So as we go out, Rob, give people a final pitch out to find out more about you and where they can find it.coms and all that good stuff. Yeah. If you're curious about me and what I do, the name of the book is Rob Mango is the artist, and it's on Amazon. It's really active there. There's dozens of reviews. You know, and my art is visible on my website, but, you know, I tell you what, taking one of these and reducing it to a digital photograph and putting it on a screen. It's a long way from seeing the real thing. You know, and if you're curious about it, either call me.

Can I give my phone number? Yeah, sure, if you want, yeah. 917-459-8319 or Robert Mango at me.com. But, you know, there's a bunch of stuff out there on me on the Internet. And if you want to reach me or know more about my work, I love people and I love talking about my work and don't feel intimidated or afraid because it's because of people in the audience that I do what I do. Other than that, you know, I have in my next, you know, I've had four museum shows going into the pandemic. And then I had the tour of European shows in Venice and in Zurich. and my next exhibition is going to be in the state of Illinois at the University of Illinois.

It's called fall of eight Olympians that I've painted. But listen, Chris, this has been wonderful, and thank you for allowing me to expound on what I do. Thank you, and I've learned so much. I mean, that's why I do the show. I learn much probably more than when I see on it, so I get to sit front seat and ask the fun questions and stuff. And what a great, I've had several epiphyties during the show. and yeah, now I have a greater appreciation for art than I did before and I had a lot. But understanding that, you know, sometimes I'm trying to fill that bug it,

I mean, sometimes I can just be going through the madness of life. And, you know, sometimes I'm doom scrolling on the internet. You know, the world's going to hell and everything is on fire, which seems to always be, I may live in interesting times as the Chinese curse, I love to say. But, you know, I have all these in my portrait to photography, account like on Instagram and I have all these this feed that I've developed of

wonderful photography artists especially in black and white and I just find that when I come up and I can be doom scrolling the world's going to hell and then I'll see these pictures come up through my algorithm and I'll be like I'll just experience this peace this calmness

and you know return of sanity sometimes imagination and and yeah and it'll either inspire me or lift me, you'll fill that bucket that you're just like, press the day is, you know, fixing problems and putting out fires and, you know, and but you'll go see this thing and you'll sit there for a few minutes, maybe looking at it and you'll maybe go through the artists of their work and just an appreciation of art and taking the time out to, you know, look around in life, you know.

It's all about the journey, looking around and collecting stories you go through life. It's not about the, it's not about the final destination. So thank you very much, Rob, for coming to show. We really appreciate it. Outstanding. Great to meet you and great to speak with you. Pleasure to have you as well, sir. So folks, pick up Rob's book where refined books are sold.

It is entitled, 100 Paintings, an Artist's Life in New York City, and you can find it out there, and there'll be a link on the Chris Foss show. Be sure to refer this show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to goodreach.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. YouTube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, and all those crazy places to the internet. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life.

Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain lead. All right, Rob. Great show.