DOMINICK MONTIGLIO
Dominick Montiglio was born into a connected crime family in Brooklyn and once an associate of the powerful and respected Gambino mafia. Montiglio turned to painting in recent years as an offset of his extreme and varied life. Including a stint as a member of a doo-wop band in his early teens and has a small success as a recording artist before joining the Green Berets and serving in Vietnam. After returning as a wounded vet at the end of the 60’s, Dominick was recruited by his notorious mob uncle, Nino Gaggi. Dominick's mob connections have been very well documented in a number of documentaries and in the book Murder Machine by Gene Mustain. As an artist he continues to weave his story using intricate patch-work images, he turns his canvas into a darkly dream-like world symbolic of his underworld past, which continues to attract media attention.
During Dominick's years in the Witness Protection Program, he lost his family. He was moved to 12 different locations, had a confrontation with a Birmingham Alabama SWAT team and was kicked off and reinstated to the program four times, as well as, had 21 different names in that time. In between all of that madness he managed to testify in three federal trials, one being the longest in US history. He was on the stand for 13 days. In as much as he had to fess up to his crimes, one homicide detective was prompted to say; “This guy was a one man crime wave!” That being true or not, the kid from Brooklyn made his mark.
Dominick Montiglio left the Witness Protection Program over 15 years ago and decided to go it alone. He no longer lives on the edge, pushing the envelope is a thing of the past now. Ironically, through a twist of fate, he has become an artist and has had some success. For him it’s a catch 22 seeing that he must keep a low profile in a very public arena.
ROSS BRODAR
Ross Brodar is a renowned New York City Outsider artist first discovered when selling his painting on the streets of Soho in the early-nineties. Labeled an Art-Brute and street artist with anti-establishment tendencies both by the press and art establishment, Brodar’s art work captures the cacophony of the street through his bold tribal urban paintings that have been gaining international appeal. Since before his discovery, Brodar has had a presence in the streets of NYC. Until recent years in his ever-defiant approach, Brodar set up his own gallery outside the Puck Building every year during the Outsider Art Fair – the premier showcase of art created outside the boundaries of official culture by self-taught and untrained artists. Brodar’s work is now showcased inside the annual exhibit and his evolvement within the Outsider Art Movement has been written about extensively including a cover-story by the Wall Street Journal of his Outsider Art Fair antics.
In recent years Brodar has also become an emergent filmmaker having written, directed and starred in his first short film A Screwdriver is a Thief’s Tool, which had its festival run in 2005. Since then, Brodar has been the writer and lead in the feature narrative Drawn In and directed the documentary Dark Visions, the story of gangster-turned-artist Dominick Montiglio. Brodar's latest documentary, Taming the Art Daisies and Lions turns the camera on himself and a group of artists during an exclusive arts residency when a group of odd-ball, untrained Outsider artists are asked to participate in the program. This is cinema verite meets reality with a dash of experimentalism as the viewer is taken inside the outsider’s mindset and creativity. This film has recently completed post-production and Brodar is working on his next documentary entitled Vices for Healthcare, taking on the issues of legalizing and taxing marijuana and prostitution to help fund healthcare reform.