Emilio Cortez

Emilio Cortez, or DJ Too Tall, combines his love of painting and the convenience of social media to successfully create, market, and sell his creations.  All artists face the challenge of how to make their art commercial and desirable for purchase, Emilio creates simple pop-paintings that are portraits of famous celebrities, local musicians, historical or fictional characters and sells them to people using social media such as Instagram and Twitter.  Often Emilio will create a piece featuring one specific artist and then tag them in a social media post and use that exposure to market his artworks.  In terms of his art practice Emilio is simply a painter, but by marketing his pieces through a new media outlet he reaches a larger audience faster than other artists do.  I think that we can learn from Emilio’s example and think of ways to combine technology with our art practices and reach larger audiences and grow a bigger client base.  Artists are needing to adapt to the waves social medias are making in contemporary culture.  Emilio is one of the artists who is using these new technologies to his advantage and adapting to the new way the art world works.