Cern’s work in São Paulo. The artist has done many walls in the Bushwick area as well. — Photo courtesy of the artist

As a number of cute girls mill about in the next room, pouring over paintings of his and the other members of the YMI crew he represents, Cern manages to stay put for a few moments in an nearby concrete stairwell to answer some of my questions. "How old are you?" I ask. "Me?" he replies as his mind obviously drifts elsewhere. "Thirteen. But I’ve been painting for 20 years."

When asked how he approaches his paintings, he glances about at nothing in particular and shrugs. "I just try not to give a fuck and just get busy," the artist answers. That outlook certainly seems to show in his general attitude.

But when looking at his work, a thoughtfulness and obvious care are exposed. Those qualities shine through not only in the expressions on the faces of many of the characters he paints, but also in the painterly techniques he uses to bring them into being.

	Another example of Cern’s style.

With one style, a refined blend of colors create smooth but solid dimensionality. In another, an array of colors are cavalierly slathered about, but balanced within a family of tones. His use of color is rarely restrained and his paintings explore the furthest possible range of colors within the context of a particular piece.

The faces of these mostly female personae often express a deep understanding, a comfortable wonder, or a skepticism absent of judgment. The populace of his imagination offer a warm embrace to the viewer, and presumably the painter as well. But the cathartic act of painting is unquestionably a motivation for Cern. "It’s very spiritual, therapeutic. I get to deal with a lot of shit through painting."

The pure act of painting, albeit bombing the streets with a spray can, was what got him started when he was a teenager growing up in Queens. But those tags and throw ups that he splashed about city walls eventually developed into his current art, and that arsenal of aerosol cans made possible his travels about the globe, with Western Europeans eventually paying for him to visit and paint their countries. He still frequently works in spray paint, and the prolific works adorning Bushwick walls, where he lived for the first half of the 2000s, are evidence. But he has also now expanded into a variety of mediums.

This progression sometimes baffles him, however. "Just looking at what I can make now, I never would have believed when I was a kid that I could do what I’m doing," Cern says as he drifts towards the other room. "I certainly never thought I’d still be spray painting."