Jacques Rosas

Jacques Rosas (born 1959 in Stockton, California) is an American artist, political activist, entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Shop Studios.

Biography

Rosas was born in Stockton, California in 1959, living there until he was in the first grade when his family moved to Colusa, California. Rosas attended San Joaquin Delta College and the University of California Irvine. Rosas started off his career as a model and actor but soon gave that up to become a talent agent. Around this time Rosas was out as gay man to his family and friends, but remained closeted to others until he was gay bashed. This set him on a course of political activism but also began his endeavor to become an artist. In the nineteen nineties Rosas became a campaigner for the International Environmental group Greenpeace where his focus was Ozone Layer Depletion.

Later and now living in New York City where his Greenpeace campaign position brought him he was once again along with his companion, the actor and composer Keith Pruitt (1961–2008), gay bashed. This second event led Rosas to creating the "Call Me Ishmael Project" of street art which consists of chalk outlines of bodies at the places Gay Men have been assaulted. Rosas latest work is a series of abstract paintings employing bright and colors and shapes as well a series of pop painting of manhole covers imprinted with reliefs of the metal seals and painted over. Rosas has studied art at the Arts Student League in New York City and Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, France.

Shop Studios

The aforementioned second bashing incident caused Rosas not be able to work for Greenpeace in his new position on one of the environmental concern's forthcoming campaigns. Therein after his recovery he went onto drive one of Manhattan's first pedicabs. He saved money from this work and with his business partner Eric Steding rented a small storefront studio which soon became a thriving business as many firms hired out the new studio for production work. In time they went on to occupy a large multi story space on 49th street before moving to West 39th Street. Many major media companies have filmed at the complex including Disney, NBC, CBS and ABC. Shop Studios has created store window displays for among other clients Armani Exchange and Yves Saint Laurent.

In April 2017, a Pop Up Exhibition produced by Red Splat Productions and Gallery X was held at Shop Studios to showcase new, unseen works of 1980s street artist Richard Hambleton (1952 - 2017), a contemporary of Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat. It ran in conjunction with the 2017 TriBeCa Film Festival and the premiere of the documentary Shadowman.