Skylar Fein

Skylar Fein was born in Greenwich Village and raised in the Bronx. He has had many careers including teaching nonviolent resistance under the umbrella of the Quakers, working for a gay film festival in Seattle, stringing for The New York Times and as pre-med student at University of New Orleans where he moved one week before Hurricane Katrina hit.

In the wreckage of New Orleans, Fein found his new calling as an artist, experimenting with color and composition of the detritus of Katrina. His work soon became known for its pop sensibility as well as its hard-nosed politics. In the fall of 2008, his Prospect.1: Biennial installation, "Remember the Upstairs Lounge," shined a spotlight on an overlooked piece of New Orleans history: a fire that swept through a French Quarter bar in 1973, killing everyone inside. The piece was praised in Artforum, Art In America, The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker, among others.

In late 2009, Fein had his first solo museum show, "Youth Manifesto," at the New Orleans Museum of Art. He has shown in solo and group exhibitions at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery (New Orleans, LA) and C24 Gallery (New York, NY) and art fairs Miami Project during Art Basel Miami Beach, Texas Contemporary and artMRKT San Francisco. Fein was the recipient of a 2009 Joan Mitchell Foundation Award and his work is in several prominent collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Louisiana State Museum, Birmingham Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, curators Dan Cameron and Bill Arning, and collectors Beth Rudin DeWoody, Lance Armstrong, Lawrence Benenson, Brooke Garber-Neidich, Stephanie Ingrassia and Thomas Coleman.