by Soli Corbelle
Hearts carved into buildings as monuments to eternal love have existed for centuries, stretching into the Victorian era. New York-based artist Ross Pino continues the bloodline in his painted canvasses — resurrecting, alongside the hearts, other Victorian obsessions such as skull iconography. Pino is about as far away from Victorian as one can get — a skateboarding, tattooed, dark wave enthusiast — but in his work he charmingly reflects age-old concepts through a 21st Century sensibility.
Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1988, the PureHoney artist of the month started out skateboarding and listening to classic rock stalwarts like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. He dropped out of school in eleventh grade to work for his dad, but injured himself skating and ended up losing his job.
Once he healed, he focused on skating full-time and became a touring professional. Winding his way around the U.S., Pino eventually landed in New York, where he’s lived for 16 years and where he came into his own as an artist.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of street style from the ‘90s-‘00s will recognize the skull and heart symbolism in Pino’s work. His self-taught style won’t disappoint those looking for generational cues, but these totems of counterculture are more than nostalgic relics in his hands. They are elevated.
The artist came to this pairing of ideas personally. As he explains it, “The skull resonated with me. There was a juxtaposition within myself. Things were happening in my life.” He was, he recalls, “slowly starting to feel a bit empty.”
On his journey from pro skater to pro painter, Pino took a detour through acting, modeling, and New York’s night life. He experienced huge opportunities in a world that is dizzying and glamorous and, for new talent, filled with temptations that can pose threats to health and well-being.
At this juncture, Pino decided to go back to school. “I poured myself into a community college out here on Long Island,” he says. “I learned about art history, and that was one of the pieces that I was missing because I didn’t know the world behind art or the language that you speak when it comes to art.”
Pino was also learning more about himself. “After some choices that I made, mental health stuff started creeping in, and I realized that the world is kind of dark and ugly,” he says. “I couldn’t wrap my mind around why I was feeling that way. I had never felt that way. How could I find myself back in a place of purity or love or light?”
“I realized that life is a journey and you cannot have the highs without the lows. There is a duality to life based on the decisions and choices you make. We reap what we sow.” he says. “I understood that to live a better life, to have more meaning and positivity in my life, I had to start making better choices. I had to believe that I could change. I’m able to be forgiven for my sins. I can’t continue beating myself up over the hard and trying times.”
“Within the skulls, in the hearts there is that love language of duality. You cannot have one without the other. That’s the chemical makeup of life: death and decay; love and positivity,” he says. “The skulls aren’t evil. They are memento mori, where it’s like, live life to the fullest today, because tomorrow isn’t promised. Also, we’re all going to end up as a skeleton at the end of the day.”
Pino’s painted skeletons often end up as charitable items. He teams up with multiple charities while also serving as co-chair for Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, donating paintings to auction to help with fundraising.
Asked what he’s got on repeat on his playlist, he says, “My number one is the Viagra Boys. They’re like, ‘We don’t play by the rules. We create our own rules.’”
While continuing a long tradition of heart-and-skull iconography, Pino has molded these symbols into his own special painterly language. He’s certainly playing the art game by his own rules. And winning.
Follow Ross Pino at instagram.com/rosspino88 and rosspino.com. ~ Kelli Bodle
