Episode 67 - Johnny Rozsa & Natalie Kates

“BLOWJOBS — $1; WITH LIPSTICK — $5.”

Blushing? Johnny Rozsa has your attention—and that is only the title.

The celebrated photographer and painter brings his irreverent spirit to Kates-Ferri Projects in New York City with a solo exhibition of Polaroids, watercolors, and mixed-media curio boxes that offer an intimate glimpse into an extraordinary life.

Gallery owner Natalie Kates is taking the provocative title in stride. According to Kates, the exhibition has nearly sold out, following an opening reception that attracted more than 100 art lovers. There is still time to experience it before it closes on Sunday, November 15.

Over four decades, Rozsa has built a distinguished career in fashion, portrait, and celebrity photography. His subjects and collaborators have included Leigh Bowery, Vivienne Westwood, Boy George, Tilda Swinton, Manolo Blahnik, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Nicolas Cage, John Malkovich, and Natasha Richardson.

The exhibition’s mixed-media curio boxes bring that world into focus, gathering faces, friendships, and encounters from a life lived with curiosity and exuberance. As Kates describes it, Rozsa’s story is as colorful as the work itself.

His watercolors bring another dimension to the exhibition. More than 20 portraits, drawn from his imagination, fill the gallery with vivid personalities. These faces seem to study us as intently as we study them. Hand-painted frames extend the colors and character of each portrait, becoming part of the work itself.

My husband, Eliot, and I were so taken with their energy that we purchased two paintings.

Rozsa’s creative path began with studies in architecture, painting, and communications at Manchester College of Art and Design, followed by communications studies at the Polytechnic of Central London and an internship at Vogue. He later ran Nostalgia, a vintage shop in Covent Garden that became a meeting place for fashion editors, models, actors, and photographers.

By the late 1970s, he was pursuing photography professionally, working in Nairobi, London, and the United States. Now based in New York, he has devoted himself to watercolor painting since 2020. Another enduring influence has been his Buddhist practice: Tina Turner introduced him to Nichiren Buddhism in 1982.

For a closer look at the experiences and friendships behind the art, listen to episode 67 of Art Lovers Forum. Rozsa’s stories are every bit as engaging as his pictures.

Johnny Rozsa at Kates-Ferri Projects
The B-Side
563 Grand Street, New York City
917-536-1999
On view through Sunday, November 15