Cojo's Origins

COJO ® ART JUGGERNAUT
COJO'S ORIGINS

What you may ask could have lead Cojo to pioneer his signature thick outlined vector-sharp style out of his subway sketch books and into the mainstream media?

Cojo was born in 1977 in his childhood home in Montclair, New Jersey by the hands of a midwife. The son of hippy artists Cojo was raised in a world of color and line. (His mom, a Graphic Designer / Art Director, and his father, a Journalist / Painter / Syndicated Political Cartoonist.)

With his mom in full time design staff positions, Cojo was practically raised by his dad in and out of art director's offices. Baby Cojo would sit hypnotized for hours watching as dad sketched during the long train rides into the city for various portfolio drop offs, art shows and interviews.

As a kid Cojo was inspired by his dad's underground comic book collection. He was also fascinated by the storefront signage and of the graffiti he observed around the big apple. At home in New Jersey his mom's layouts were spread out on light tables (it was all cut and paste back then pre-computer).

Growing up in a small house with two art studios, it was hard for Cojo to avoid seeing art in the various steps of production. Over time Cojo developed a style with elements of both of his parent's strong points, cartoonish drawing skill, with a graphic streety edge.

In 1981 and again 1985 the family expanded, adding two more children. A brother (Brett) and sister (Aislinn). They had to move to a bigger house in a town much farther from the city. A town that was artistically void, Cojo took refuge in the local comic book shop and school art room for inspiration. By the age of 14 Cojo made a hobby reality by starting an internship with MARVEL COMICS in Manhattan. By sixteen Cojo was professionally coloring for various Marvel Comic Titles including The Punisher, Spider-Man, and The Fantastic 4, making him one of, if not the youngest (and highest paid starting salary) professional comic book hand colorists in comic book history.

During this time Cojo was also writing short stories, journals, and was experimenting heavily with poetry along side fellow writer and best friend INK. The two built a reputation among the small town locals as poetry house favorites by reading new verse in a local cafe's weekly open mike sessions.

In 1995, at 17 Cojo was hired as a computer colorist by Atomic Paintbrush (A now defunct comic book computer coloring company based in NY). There Cojo was taught how to color and manipulate line art via the computer. He was the first employee hired by the owners. Over the next three years the company would grow to 30 plus colorists. As Cojo was learning how to color with the computer he was also starting college. Cojo attended THE SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS (SVA consistently ranks in the top 10 art schools in America, US NEWS REPORT).

Having mastered Adobe Photoshop extensively for his computer coloring position, in 1996 Cojo's Photoshop and color mastery landed him a paid photo retouching and design internship with famed NY boutique movie poster design firm Indika (Pulp Fiction, Fahrenheit 9/11, Girl Interrupted). Under the tutelage of Indika head James Verdesoto Cojo helped design posters for such films as THE BIG LEBOWSKI, MIMIC, and HBO'S TAXICAB CONFESSIONS 2 (Las Vegas), among others.

Over the next few years Cojo studied under such artists, art directors, and mentors as Gail Anderson (Rolling Stone Magazine), Stacy Drummond (Tommy Boy / Mtv), Chris McCormack, and Tony Palladino. Art school is where Cojo met some of the greatest most creative people in the world, made some great friends, all while honing his style and taking in the city from the perspective of a poor college student.

Over the next three years Cojo became a master of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator; working on hundreds of comic book pages from various comic book companies. While and after working for Atomic Paintbrush Cojo did various freelance computer-coloring gigs. Coloring concept art and packaging art for Toy Biz, Art Asylum, the band KISS and Spencer's Gifts. As Cojo began to tire of comic books, he resolved to just coloring comic book covers for Marvel, for such titles as Spider-Man and Conan.

By his Junior year of art school Cojo gave up coloring and was freelancing for some of the top hip-hop magazines in the world- pushing towards solidifying his style as part of the pop culture mainstream one issue at a time. Cojo's first mainstream major magazine art commissioning experience was detailed in an interview with FYI Magazine- Read It Here .

After graduating college with his BFA in 1999 within a few weeks Cojo got a job as an in-house illustrator for a flash start-up dotcom. Cojo moved to 43rd Street and worked full time with the dotcom for the next year and a half while continuing to take in freelance work and paint.

In 2001 Cojo moved to Park Slope Brooklyn. Soon after the dotcom industry started to collapse. 9/11 rocked Cojo (being that the dotcom was only a block away from ground zero). Cojo was scheduled to go to work, but didn't ever go in until after 10 AM so he was left not knowing if his coworkers were dead or alive. Cojo's Blog Entry That Day.

9/11 was the last nail in the dotcom's coffin. For the next few months Cojo painted. His palate turned blue. These were very bleak times for the Art Juggernaut. When he finished his series he had his first one man fine art show in Park Slope titled VISUALIZE 4 ONE MINUTE, (aka THE BLUE SHOW).

Cojo and his then girlfriend moved from Brooklyn to Queens, to New Jersey, then to Long Island over the next six months barely scraping by. Since the dotcom bubble popped Magazines felt the hurt when their biggest ad revenue stream collapsed, so they cut pages and art budgets.

Cojo's luck began to change when he landed his first Maxim Magazine gig A DAY IN THE LIFE OF KEVIN COSTNER". Since then Cojo has become the world renowned Art Juggernaut you know today. He's been internationally published dozens of times. He's helped reintroduce full-page sequential art back to mainstream magazines. He's done fashion design, painted commissioned portraits, been involved with charity events for 9/11 victims and AIDS research. He's been printed in hundreds of magazines, done nationwide radio interviews (terrestrial and Sirius Satellite radio), lectured in odd Midwestern states.

For two years (03-05) Cojo was represented by Power Agent Kevon Glickman and RESPECT MANAGEMENT. Kevon was the president of RuffNation and RuffHouse Records and discovered Lauren Hill and The Fugees. He also worked in the art world in the 80's and threw shows for both Basquiat and Keith Herring.

Now Cojo is back on his own, trudging ever forward, the Art Juggernaut knows no bounds. If you want a more detailed accounting of Cojo's rise to Art World Stardom post college, visit and peruse his blog / online journal Artsucks.com.

Just another day in the life of an Art Juggernaut.

-Cojo