Devon Rodriguez built a career from portraits of subway commuters, online videos and gallery work. In Work in Progress, he looks back on the difficult home life he has described: an abusive mother, a father who abandoned him, and a grandmother who spent years trying to get him removed from the household. He has said that drawing gave him an escape.
In an interview with ABC7 New York, Rodriguez recalled that drawing was his focus from an early age. He was rejected by a Manhattan art high school and attended his zone school in the Bronx, where he said art teachers made a profound difference. One teacher mentored him and taught him fundamentals including portrait drawing.
From the 4 Train to a Global Audience
Rodriguez developed his portrait practice on the subway, drawing a range of passengers. In his ABC7 interview, he described the trains as a place where he could focus on his work. Graffiti visible from the subway also influenced him. After he was arrested at age 13 for drawing graffiti, a mentor advised him to redirect his talent toward portraiture, according to amNewYork Metro.
The subway portraits later became the basis for his online videos. In a note dated July 26, 2020, Rodriguez laid out a plan to post videos of himself drawing passengers on TikTok. His first application to Manhattan's High School of Art and Design was rejected in 2010; after attending Samuel Gompers High School in the Bronx, he worked with teacher Jeremy Harper to strengthen his portfolio and was accepted on a second try in 2012, according to amNewYork Metro.
Art in the Subway and in Schools
Rodriguez’s sketches are an individual practice, distinct from the MTA’s commissioned public art. The agency says its Arts & Design program was created in 1985 and commissions permanent artworks for the subway system, according to MTA Arts & Design.
Access to arts instruction has also varied across the city. A 2014 report from the Office of the New York City Comptroller found that more than 42 percent of city schools lacking either full-time or part-time certified arts teachers were in the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn. That historical, combined-area figure does not describe current conditions or establish what any one school or artist experienced.
From Commission Work to Celebrity Sitters
Rodriguez enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology after graduating high school in 2014 but dropped out around age 18 or 19 to chase commission work full time, the outlet's reporting shows. That bet paid off in ways few could have predicted. By 2021, according to Artnet News, his daily rate for sponsored brand content had climbed to between $20,000 and $30,000 as his following expanded.
His subject list grew to match his growing profile. In addition to ordinary commuters, Rodriguez has sketched Oprah Winfrey, Ed Sheeran, and Jared Leto, and sat with former President Joe Biden in the Oval Office in late 2022 — an encounter during which Biden reportedly told him the portrait looked like a photograph, according to Artnet News. That same reporting detailed his September 2023 solo gallery debut, Underground, mounted by United Talent Agency Fine Arts at a Chelsea pop-up gallery, featuring oil paintings of commuters pulled from subway systems in New York, London, Paris, and Barcelona.
His fine-art bona fides predate the gallery show. In 2019, Rodriguez was named a finalist in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition for an oil portrait of his mentor, sculptor John Ahearn, per the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
Honduran Roots and a Message for Latino Youth
Rodriguez was born in 1996 in the South Bronx to a family of Puerto Rican and Honduran descent, and was raised primarily by his Honduran grandmother, Maria Estrada, after Child Protective Services removed him from his mother's care, according to background cited by MN2S. In his ABC7 interview, Rodriguez said he's proud to represent Latinos through his work and his story, and he hopes readers of his memoir will relate to it and come to believe they can do anything.
He also described how far his career has carried him beyond the five boroughs. Rodriguez told ABC7 that his sketches, paintings, and portraits have taken him around the world, and that his international travels still feel difficult to comprehend. He recalled that even Brooklyn once seemed exotic to a family that mostly stayed put in the Bronx.
A Creator-Economy Giant With Gallery Credentials
Penguin Random House published Work in Progress: A Memoir on September 29, 2026. The book recounts Rodriguez's path from the South Bronx to a career in portraits, paintings and online media.
