Brian Montuori

I shared some needles with friends in 2025. Sometimes it was in my apartment, sometimes it was in a hotel room. I’m only a recreational user so the process wasn’t always pretty, but I did my best to make it all pretty in the end. My favorite one is not pictured, as the experience of tattooing my own sister was as uniquely nerve-wracking as it was uniquely profound. Thanks to the handful of brave soldiers who laughed off my 4-year hiatus from this practice, and promoted me directly to chief of staph. It was fun and rewarding to reconnect to this hobby with a fresh perspective.

Some newer drawings (with middle-aged guido for scale). I haven’t used this service as much as I used to, but the show always goes on. Thanks for following along here.

Unexpectedly spent most of my summer drawing and tattooing and have been terrible about sharing any of it. Here’s a bit of new work in an old style, time is a flat circle etc etc. 30 x 22, acrylic, gouache & color pencil on paper. Thanks for looking!

Fractured Maritime. Oil, acrylic, ink, rubber on canvas. 90 x 136 inches. Started in 2018, perpetually adding paint to it until yesterday. Recently I’ve been bringing some things I started awhile back over the finish line. I had an idea about a decade back that I wanted to work on some paintings over a longer timeline. I had quickly made paintings for various exhibitions and when I saw them afterwards, I felt like I could see a whole snippet of my life at that time. So I thought it would be interesting to make some things that would grow and change alongside me and not be tied to any specific set of life circumstances. I wasn’t hoping for any profound experience from it, which is convenient since none was delivered, but it did leave me with a group of paintings that showed me who I was and why I need to do this stuff. Maybe that is a profound experience and I’m taking it for granted because that’s just what painting looks like. Either way, it’s been a fun thing to try out. Thanks for looking at the things I make, I hope everybody is having a great week.

Some birds from today. Gouache on paper, 11x14”.

Quiet day at the office. I haven’t posted much on here recently, been working away to finish up some older paintings and get the ball rolling on some new ones. Greek mythology, Bavarian folklore, and pro wrestling have entered the chat. Some fun new projects with your favorite bands and one with Middle Earth’s favorite airplane mechanic have been slowly bubbling in a pot on the stove as well. And somewhere in between all of it, I’ve picked up my tattooing practice again. It’s a strange time to make things, it’s easy to feel like one is playing the fiddle while Rome is burning. But it’s important to keep going- in my own experience, it’ll all make sense later. While writing inspirational passages isn’t exactly my strong suit, the occasional reminder to myself that this is all ok tends to help get the wheels out of the mud from time to time. Recently when I’ve been asked what artwork I currently have available, my response has typically been to send over a few photos with prices and that would be it. But in a new change away from fielding these requests with random photos with no context, I’ve created a proper document of everything, sort of like a complete guide to the things I make. Prints are always available through @deathwishinc but if you’re interested in an original artwork, send me a message and I’ll provide a link for access to the catalog. Uncertain times require unconventional methods, much love to all my creative brothers & sisters navigating these waters alongside me. Thanks for following along here, I hope everyone has a great weekend!

China Syndrome, 7 x 10ft., oil on canvas, 2018-2025. (Yes, almost 7 years. One can’t simply rush- whatever this is.) I hope everyone is having a great weekend, thanks for looking! 🐮

Watched an episode of Ken Burns’ 1994 documentary, “Baseball” yesterday, and it got me thinking about @rich_hall which makes perfect sense if you knew @rich_hall and since I was in an old-timey headspace, I thought an old-timey pencil portrait would be an appropriate way for me to memorialize him. Typically I would’ve texted him a pic of this halfway done complaining about how I hate drawing hair and he’d say at least there were no hands in it. Now I’d probably ask him if he’s already gotten to meet Ty Cobb to ask him about beating up that guy with no arms. Honored to call you a friend in this life. We all miss you buddy.

Big Ron was a grandmaster champion of the international tracherro circuit, winning his first title after a grueling 11 hour long match under the desert sun outside of Samarra, Iraq in 1973. After more than a decade performing at the top level of his sport, Big Ron was retired from competition and became a brand ambassador to the World Tracherro Federation, ushering in a new era of popularity for the WTF. As a result, Ron was featured in more than 40 commercials and television appearances, including a recurring role on Mork & Mindy. Unfortunately during the shoot of a cologne commercial in 1988, something appeared to upset the bear and despite being calmer in his twilight years, he proceeded to destroy the set and camera equipment, causing over $900,000 worth of damage and hospitalizing 14 crew members in the process. Fragrance giant Drakkar cancelled the campaign and pulled their sponsorship in the WTF. The company limped on but between lost ad revenue and rising tensions with American companies operating in the Middle East, the organization filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and was effectively finished by the end of 1989. Aside from a few disastrous appearances on public access children’s television shows, Big Ron mostly retired from the public eye and passed away in Michigan on his handler’s farm in 1994. Qatar Hero, 74x92 inches, private collection.

A week ago I learned of the sudden passing of my old friend and studiomate John Copeland. It kinda derailed any “2024 was so hype…” post and I’ll have more to say about that at some point but it’s been a strange week, where I’ve found it difficult to be traditionally sad. It’s maddening and frustrating to not have him here anymore but one of the appealing byproducts of creating artwork is the chance to stick around a bit longer. Cope created a sprawling body of work, as wondrous as it is intimidating in its sheer numbers, not even factoring the high quality of the work into the equation. I’ve never seen someone create as much work as him and once we began sharing a work space, I had to up my game to try and match his pace and without question helped turn me into much of the artist I am today. It’s been a long time since we got to share a space together, but our work started to get “noticed” around the same time and over 10,000 burritos and 10,000 beers, 2 trigger-tempered idiots figured out the nuts and bolts of being artists. I couldn’t have asked for a better sidekick to spend the important beginning and formative part of my career with. He was endlessly talented, inspiring, funny, and grumpy as shit and people will continue to speak his name long after the rest of us are gone. There’s a memorial for him today in Brooklyn that I’m unfortunately not attending, but fine with it since I pulled a Copeland move and skipped out on an event to sling some paint around in the studio. I hope everyone attending is able to remember him as fondly as I do in their own ways. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, give it a look at @johncopelandstudio See you in the aisles of the great Pearl Paint store in the sky, buddy.

Troop Yeti (1989), streaming this season on MonTVori+ Initially panned for its blatant attempt to capitalize on the success of films such as Harry & the Hendersons and Troop Beverly Hills, Troop Yeti takes us head first into the unlikely, chaotic friendship between a Girl Scout troop and a 4000 year old yeti named Burt who lives in the woods nearby. From the Lucille Ball-style comedy of “Seal Blubber Cookies” to the tragic, bloody finale of “Where Did Sally Go?”, all 11 season one episodes including the controversial "Berlin Wall Spektakular" holiday special will be available for the first time in over 35 years. [admin note- I wanted to figure out a way to use reels without showing a poorly choreographed or cringey frantic video of myself quickly painting something that would be unusable as real artwork since I’d be conscious of the fact that I was focusing on the filming part and not the actual painting part. We roll like C-SPAN over here, it’s boring and process-oriented. Nonetheless, I still make videos for fun so I figured I’d start dumping them into this cobwebby “Reels” section that I’ve never intentionally used because I’m over 40. Anyway, welcome to MonTVori+.]

2025.