Art Battle at Great Northern: Clubs are boring, this isn’t

Clubs are boring to me. They’re loud so you can’t hear anyone, and I’m a terrible dancer so there’s really nothing for me to do there, but Art Battle was different.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I pulled up to The Great Northern — the same venue that soon will host a Dore Alley party, our annual celebration of leather, fetish, and BDSM. Would everyone be naked with whips? No, it’s an art show. People will be dressed in formal evening wear and no one will talk to me because I’m in sweatpants. Or actually it will probably be dead silent with an air of hostility because, you know, it’s a battle.

So it was nothing like that — just a friendly hipster-looking artsy crowd. Lots of outfits with that distinctive 90s graffiti style of color blocking and oversized tops; bespoke to each personality. DJs kept the music at the perfectly homeostatic decibel, and the community atmosphere driven by the art show made it an exciting but not overwhelming experience. (Yes, I’m old.)

It’s as much an art battle as it is an art walk. Painters positioned themselves in center stage with their easels and ring lights, and the audience moved around them in unison to watch the progress, drink, and dance. Canvases go from white nothingness to an imaginative expression of each artist’s experiences, memories, and traumas in just 20 minutes. It’s mesmerizing.

At Art Battle no one is a fly on the wall. You circle the stage with the crowd and collectively, you’re the driving force that inspires the creation that you witness going from zero to hero. Voting in winners and having the opportunity to buy the art makes the experience real — long after the show ends. An attendee told me he bid on three pieces that night.

“You can’t not feel like an artist when you’re here,” said Randy, who has been to these events in six different cities.

The rounds went super fast from where I stood, but artist Chuck Whelon told me the adrenaline of creating a live drawing in front of a crowd can actually have the opposite effect for them, causing an overly ambitious process in which they finish too quickly and, miss out on opportunity to utilize precious time to make the piece better.

If you’re a seasoned ‘porntrait’ artist like CeeCee — who was attending last night as a guest — you might pick up on the intricacies of the creative processes, that would go unnoticed to the layman. “These artists don’t have time for the paint to dry, which makes layering colors really difficult,” CeeCee told me.

She noted that Tatiana did an amazing job with her color theory — “extra impressive under these conditions.” CeeCee will be competing at the next Art Battle, “painting butts,” she joked. But no: She will actually be painting butts and I think other parts, and I will definitely be there for that.

In the end, winner Pablo Maldonado collected $250 cash and will be one of 12 artists who get to compete in the 2025 Art Battle City Championships. But it’s not about the money, it’s about the prestige. Pablo went home last night knowing that the 200 people in attendance collectively determined that he was the best.

Or maybe they thought that his chihuahua, El Churro Pico, was the best. He co-created the round 3 piece that secured Maldonado’s final vote, thereby sending him to the nationals, so respect where respect is due.

“Art Battle!!! What a great time. I am stoked that people enjoyed my art,” he told me in a text message, adding that his dog “really loves to paint.”

If you love art, but can’t draw a stick figure to save your life, this is where you fit in. I walked out of The Great Northern with a newfound interest in art, which I’ve never loved. But this wasn’t just any art show; It’s high-energy, it’s live, and it has a pure, inclusive aura that I found myself wanting to join.

The next Art Battle is on August 14th — Details.

Courtney Muro is a San Francisco-based content strategist, producer, designer, and creator.

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