Brooklyn Made sends local artist to Tokyo for residency

BOROUGHWIDE — A Brooklyn artist will be presenting his craft all the way to Japan.

Brooklyn Made, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce’s retail platform for local makers, is bringing artist and Brooklyn Tattoo co-founder Adam Suerte to Tokyo for a four-day live art residency later this month.

The opportunity is an artist-in-residence program at Brooklyn Made’s international pop-up in Sugamo, Tokyo, and will feature live painting, public workshops, a meet-and-greet and collaborations with students from Taisho University.

Brooklyn Made is a project of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce that launched in 2023. It showcases locally made goods and the creative entrepreneurs behind them. It has retail locations at City Point and Industry City in Sunset Park.

Suerte said he is excited for this opportunity. 

“I have never been to Japan but have friends who are from there and have visited, and I am really excited to check out all it has to offer visually and culturally in the time we have there,” he told the Brooklyn Eagle.

As a local artist, Suerte has been working with the Brooklyn Made Store to sell his merchandise and participate in art shows. Last fall, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce welcomed a branding class from Taisho University in Sugamo. 

It invited a select group of artists who do business with the store to meet and brainstorm products they would sell at a university-run satellite pop-up of the Brooklyn Made store in Sugamo. 

“While I was invited to that initial meeting, I was not chosen for the initial trip over,” Suerte said. “The university liked my style and subsequently hired me to design the university’s 100th anniversary t-shirts. It’s been great to establish a rapport and work with the university team to create these shirts.”

Gaia DiLoreto, executive director of both Brooklyn Made stores, said after being on the ground in Tokyo and experiencing the opening of Brooklyn Made Sugamo, it became clear that fans of the store were drawn in by its street culture and art.

“Adam Suerte was selected not just because of his collaboration with Taisho University, but because of his broad selection of merchandise that we believe would appeal to the Japanese audience, including apparel, accessories, home goods and graphic novels,” she said. “Adam also has experience showing his artistic process live, as a tattoo artist and a fine artist.”

“Adam’s residency is the kind of moment we built this pop-up for — a Brooklyn artist creating live, in real time, in conversation with a Tokyo community,” said Randy Peers, CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. “It’s also a chance for Taisho University students to engage directly with a working Brooklyn artist.”

Suerte said he is honored that he was chosen in large part due to his artistry.

“I am excited to meet the team I have been working with remotely on the university t-shirt, the staff at the store and, of course, the students,” he said. 

“Also, since most of my art is centered on cityscape work — particularly Brooklyn cityscapes — I am extremely excited to roam around, take photos and be inspired by Japan’s skyline, likely gathering reference material for some new artwork documenting my travels down the line.”

Brooklyn has had a huge influence on the Cobble Hill native. Suerte said that across mediums, including painting, illustration, comic book art, merchandising and tattooing, his work celebrates all things Brooklyn.

“Urban themes are consistent throughout my work. My cityscape paintings usually depict a scene in Brooklyn that I have personally walked through repeatedly before I attempt to paint it,” he said. “My work attempts to capture the finer details and landmarks within the ever-changing Brooklyn landscape.”

Suerte has loved to draw since he was a child. His mother used to drop him and his brother off at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturdays for its art programs while she wandered the museum.

He started studying art classically around age 12 at The Art Students League, then attended LaGuardia Music and Art High School, finally studying Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design.

“Art has always been my thing, and despite the numerous jobs I held over my early lifetime, art has always been the backbone and what I’ve always wanted to concentrate on,” Suerte said. “The fact that art, in many aspects, is my job now is a dream come true, and the only way I ever saw myself.”

He also thanked Brooklyn Made for their help, praising them for championing independent creatives and offering invaluable opportunities independent artists and makers would not typically find.

“When a small business can’t afford the risk of signing a lease for a brick-and-mortar store, the Chamber and Brooklyn Made store offer them space, which includes promotion, opportunities to meet the public, and a venue to sell their wares both in-store and at other locations.”