Every two weeks local talent from the Rotterdam area exhibits on our Spotlight wall. From May 27 to June 10 2026 it is a.k.a. skips’ turn. His work can be admired in our exhibition space at Teilingerstraat 172 (and through the shop window on days we are closed) and is also for sale here. Read his story in his own words below.
“I’m a.k.a. skips, a Rotterdam-based painter, musician, photographer, sex worker, and queer trans man interested in the creation of ‘theory you can fuck.’ I was born in San Francisco, where my self-taught visual art practice began on the streets as a teenage delinquent in the graffiti scene. I taught myself to produce music with a cheap copy of Logic Pro 6 at the age of 13. I received a BFA in Recorded Music from NYU and graduated at the age of 20 with honors and an award from my department. Throughout my 20’s I toured the world as a DJ and musician. In 2021 I retired from music to begin my gender transition in private, returning to music as an honest but far less “socially acceptable” version of myself. My photography book i want to rest and be held by someone who loves me was a eulogy for the first 30 years of my life, memorializing the many acts of self-destruction required to live inauthentically. No matter what form my creativity takes, I know that liberation requires coloring outside the lines.”
“My paintings are rooted in real, human experience. I use my own body as a grounding device, painting nude self-portraits in positions of vulnerability, sexual expression, and/or power. Sometimes I exist in a defined space, sometimes I live in abstract on spray paint backgrounds and illustrative objects. Occasionally the bodies I paint are not mine, but generic forms that suggest cis experience, or representations of parts of self. I use a combination of techniques I picked up in my street art days, blended with self-taught traditional techniques to make figurative works. In my new body of work, these serve as the backdrop for stenciled texts with bites of practical perspective.”
Find and follow a.k.a. skips on social media and his website.
