Joe Iurato: A Trouble Maker With Hope at Taglialatella

The new rooftop mural by Joe Iurato at Taglialatella Gallery on 10th Avenue in Chelsea. Photo Kai McQueen, Taglialatella Galleries

High up on the facade of Taglialatella Galleries in Chelsea, a kid in a Batman costume sits perched on a brick ledge, cape flowing behind him as he gazes upward. The mural captures something essential about Joe Iurato's work—that thin line between childhood mischief and something deeper, between play and the weight of the world.

The piece serves as both advertisement and preview for Trouble Maker, Iurato's solo exhibition opening Thursday at the gallery's 10th Avenue location. But more than that, it's a perfect entry point into understanding how this 51-year-old New Jersey native has built a career exploring the relationship between trouble and hope.

"If there was no such thing as trouble you wouldn't need hope," Iurato said in an interview with Whitehot on the eve of the show’s opening. "When you're in times of adversity, when the chips are down, when things are just rough, you hold out hope that things will get better."

Joe Iurato, left, chat with Brian Swarts, president and director of Taglialatella Galleries during the opening of Trouble Maker. Photo by J. Scott Orr

It's a philosophy that runs through everything Iurato makes, from the tiny wooden figures he's been placing in urban environments for over a decade to the larger gallery pieces and murals that have established him as a significant voice bridging street art and fine art. Born in 1973, Iurato is a multidisciplinary artist whose works are built on a foundation of stencils and aerosol. But he came to street art later than most;  he started by putting up small works during his lunch breaks while working for a magazine in Soho.

“I loved graffiti growing up, it was part of my culture. I didn't think it would be a career, but in 2008, during the recession, I got laid off and had a one-year-old at home with no work. I started showing paintings locally and decided I was going to chase it," he said.

Joe Iurato, Have a Nice Day, 2025. Photo courtesy Taglialatella Galleries

That late start might explain the mature perspective that sets his work apart. While many street artists focus on rebellion for its own sake, Iurato explores trouble as a necessary catalyst for growth. The works in Trouble Maker span from playful to profound—pieces like Have A Nice Day, featuring a girl in a baseball cap flipping off the viewer with a grin, to more contemplative works like Starkeeper (Dusk), where a masked child looks upward at a purple twilight sky filled with stars.

The show title emerged organically, Iurato says. "The whole idea of the trouble theme came together sort of organically. I wasn't working on it as a theme originally, but when I knew the show was coming I just started painting and when I took a step back to look at the things I'd been putting together the one thing that I saw running through the work was this sense of trouble."

But trouble comes in many forms in Iurato's work. There's "the fun and cute sort of trouble that we all got into as kids and that shows in my work," alongside "more serious troubles that we sort of put on ourselves. Sometimes it's all in our mind and sometimes we realize that there really are big troubles out there in the world."

An autobiographical element runs through the Taglialatella show as well. For example, Every Winter (Self Portrait) shows a hooded figure in contemplative solitude, while The World Is Ours features a child with his dog, an iconic image that has become central to Iurato's visual vocabulary. The child appears throughout the exhibition in various forms—sometimes spray-painting messages, sometimes just standing with quiet confidence.

Joe Iurato, Berner, 2025. Photo courtesy Taglialatella Galleries

What makes Iurato's trouble different from typical street art angst is his insistence on hope as trouble's companion. "I saw that I was painting those hopeful pieces that were based on what I was feeling, and so hope also became a sort of underlying theme to the show," he said.

This perspective might be rooted in his atypical life. Besides being an artist, Iurato is a devoted father to a pair of teenagers. At the same time, he’s a certified sommelier and has written extensively about wine. That multi-faceted existence gives him a different relationship to risk and rebellion than the one that artists who live entirely outside conventional structures experience.

His commercial success hasn't softened his edge. His client list includes Kenneth Cole, GQ, Red Bull, Adidas, Nike, ESPN, the NBA, NBC, and even Mike Tyson's Iron Mike Productions. When asked about maintaining artistic integrity while working with corporate clients, Iurato says simply: "I try to be as selective as possible to pick jobs that are in line with things that I feel comfortable with."

Joe Iurato working on a new rooftop mural at Taglialatella Gallery in Chelsea. Photo Kai McQueen, Taglialatella Galleries

The opening at Taglialatella also serves as an unveiling of sorts for the 15-foot mural of the Batman-clad kid. Looking at that mural from the street, it's hard not to think about Iurato's central thesis. The kid in the cape isn't causing trouble in any destructive sense. He's dreaming, looking upward, embodying the kind of productive mischief that pushes boundaries without burning everything down. It's trouble as catalyst, not chaos—the kind that leads somewhere worth going.

Trouble Maker runs through October 10th at Taglialatella Galleries, 229 10th Avenue, Chelsea, New York City.