YOU HAVE to respect a man who’s about his hustle. I’m talking about the kind of guy who’s not too cute to pick up a broom if that’s what it takes to make things happen.
Take, for instance, Oronde Kairi Johnson. From midnight until 7 a.m., he’s responsible for keeping things clean outside an office building at 15th and Market streets, even in subzero temperatures. This menial labor, the likes of which a whole lot of people think they’re too good to do, provides him with pocket money to finance his real profession as an up-and-coming artist.
A prolific painter who graduated from the University of the Arts in 2003, Johnson, 38, describes his artistic style as “stylized realism.”
One of his best-received prints, “In Daddy’s Hands,” shows an African-American father sitting on a stoop fixing his daughter’s hair. Johnson also has done portraits of rapper
Article source: http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/arts/20140114_Philly_painter_heads_to_big-time_art_expo.html