Recession helps New York artist

Recession helps artist
(01:42) Rough Cut (Reuters Video)

Peter Zonis Website, http://www.peterzonisny.com/

Apr 9 - A New York street painter gets the chance to exhibit his work due to recession-themed art that features coins and dollars falling from the sky in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
The recession may have given New York artist Peter Zonis just the break he needed.
For a decade, Zonis been showcasing his art on the street but recently a series of his large-scale recession-themed paintings called "Metropolis Now" has gone on exhibit in the lobby of the Durst Organization building in midtown Manhattan.
Until now, Zonis was selling his oil pastels from a sidewalk outside Barney's, an upscale department store on famed Madison Avenue. The paintings in the Durst exhibition are larger than his usual pieces.
The paintings sell for about $500 to $10,000, and well-known buyers have included former baseball star Reggie Jackson and television host Pat O'Brien.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) PETER ZONIS, ARTIST: "I just wanted to turn a negative into a positive and by doing these paintings that it would somehow give people more hope and a solution to what was happening. That this was just going to be a period of time that would pass."
"When this all started to happen rather than doing a painting like I had already done of the bull where it was located, I thought maybe from a good luck point-of-view I could reposition the bull, bring it right in front of the New York Stock Exchange and just take more risks with the painting and create - I mean it's. It's basically - what it is, is a cash give-away."