Who

Cerletty's surreal paintings have made him a rising star on the downtown art scene.

Backstory

Born in Milwaukee, Cerletty moved to the city in 2002 after graduating from BU, landing his first group show the same year at Mirabelle Marden and Melissa Bent's scene-making downtown gallery, Rivington Arms. Apparently, the young gallerists liked what they saw: Cerletty had a solo show at the Rivington a year later—the Times praised his "cool, light instinct for weirdness"—and he's since had two more solo shows there. Cerletty's work has also been exhibited at Gavin Brown's Enterprise gallery, the Andrea Rosen Gallery, the Mary Boone Gallery and London's Royal Academy of Arts.

Of note

Cerletty specializes in hyper-realistic portraits, but not the kind that mom and dad would hang over the mantle. Like fellow downtown phenom Dash Snow, Cerletty likes the smutty stuff. Although his work occasionally references highbrow artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Gober, his piece "John Wilkes Booth" is a colored pencil close-up of an androgynous figure's erection straining against jeans, while "Wishing I Had a Twin Sister" is a pencil drawing of a waifish girl, naked from the waist up, with Cerletty's face. His collectors include former UPN chief Dean Valentine, model Liberty Ross, and, inevitably, Charles Saatchi.

For the record

Yes, his first name only has one "t."

Personal

Cerletty lives and works in Williamsburg.